Of possible interest. A study note on Exodus 7:3 in the NET Full Notes Edition says that the verb in the verse (qashah) is presented in the imperfect tense, and is found in that tense “only in these ‘hardening passages’”.
English doesn’t have an imperfect tense. In languages that do have imperfect tense verbs, they may refer to an action that occurred in the past and is incomplete / ongoing — or — to an action that coincides with another action.
I assume the second sense is what the translators intended when they choose the phrase “I will harden” to render the text in English. They made it a future tense, to show that the Lord’s touch on Pharaoh’s heart was contingent on Aaron’s delivery of His message to Pharaoh.
But our English texts make it seem like there are 2 separate events in time (speech & hardening), where maybe the intent was to communicate a deeper / more subtle connection between the two actions.
The connection in our texts is there by implication but not shown by the grammatical construct itself.
What I am trying to say is, perhaps the Lord’s words are more like a prophesy than an explanation of an intervention He planned to do in a temporal sense. Not so much “you do this and I will do that” and more “because of Pharaoh’s nature, when this happens that will happen.”
Not saying that should be the literal translation by any means. Only that there is a sense of that aspect that might have been in the original text but is not in the English.
I am puzzling over this, this morning, because yesterday I spent a good deal of time with the phrase that is translated in our English Bibles as “the Lord’s wrath.” If I understand correctly, the word translated as “wrath” (or anger in many versions) is *not* intended to mean the human emotion of anger. Per the NET study note on Exodus 15:7, the word is a metonymy of “cause.” It is a figure of speech evoking cause->effect. So more like what we moderns call karma than the picture we form when we think of a wrathful person.
I am posting more thoughts on this myself shortly, because of these LA fires and the sense we get that they have a dimension outside the natural. But it is an error, IMO, to imagine that that non-natural dimension is something like human vengeance or temper tantrum.
That is a really interesting point you bring up. I don't have enough expertise in Hebrew grammar to make a definitive conclusion but the that nature begets consequence does seem to track with a number of other biblical ideas (which is usually a good sign of interpretation in my book). Thanks for exploring with us!
You're on the right track when you say we need a Christocentric view of this issue (when isn't this true??). However you neglect to mention the whole the caanites are giants issue and how Joshua (the same name as Jesus!) is doing what the flood did to giants since God said he wouldn't flood the world again (which was in part to deal with the giants) it's not like the caanites were your run of the mill idolaters, they were deeply engrossed in sin in a way that in our Christian influenced world we find hard to even imagine. Another issue that couldn't been brought up viewing this Christocentrically is that with Jesus we have the solution to sin whereas under with the nomos (Torah/Law) you can only deal and manage sin hence why you have to do the Day of Atonement ritual yearly. So Joshua, and later David, destroying the giants (nephalim) of caanan is part of merely managing the problem of sin, but with Jesus the problem of sin is dealt with in a permanent way where even a crumb is able to make the women's daughter clean (perhaps eucharistic language??). Also, the women's daughter is plagued with an "unclean spirit" (Mark 7:25). In biblical terms unclean almost always mean mixture, a call back to giants being the byproduct of fallen angels intermingling with humans ( see Genesis 6).
Knit pick: "c.f." is used to indicate contrast/disagreement "The realm of the forms does not exist (cf. Plato)". "See" is used for supporting evidence "God created the world (see Genesis 1).
This is fantastic. I have never heard the correlation between Jesus and the Cannanites.
Not only did you give a comprehensive and powerful explanation, but you wrote your article in a very intriguing way.
Most of the time I read articles on here you get one or ther other. So Great job!
P.S. I have listened to Alex O'Connor have multiple polemics against the Christian answers to this 'Moral Dilemma'. (Was actually listening to the podcast with the Knechtles). I has wanted to write my own article on how to defend Christianity but you did a perfect job. So thank you for the resource!
Of possible interest. A study note on Exodus 7:3 in the NET Full Notes Edition says that the verb in the verse (qashah) is presented in the imperfect tense, and is found in that tense “only in these ‘hardening passages’”.
English doesn’t have an imperfect tense. In languages that do have imperfect tense verbs, they may refer to an action that occurred in the past and is incomplete / ongoing — or — to an action that coincides with another action.
I assume the second sense is what the translators intended when they choose the phrase “I will harden” to render the text in English. They made it a future tense, to show that the Lord’s touch on Pharaoh’s heart was contingent on Aaron’s delivery of His message to Pharaoh.
But our English texts make it seem like there are 2 separate events in time (speech & hardening), where maybe the intent was to communicate a deeper / more subtle connection between the two actions.
The connection in our texts is there by implication but not shown by the grammatical construct itself.
What I am trying to say is, perhaps the Lord’s words are more like a prophesy than an explanation of an intervention He planned to do in a temporal sense. Not so much “you do this and I will do that” and more “because of Pharaoh’s nature, when this happens that will happen.”
Not saying that should be the literal translation by any means. Only that there is a sense of that aspect that might have been in the original text but is not in the English.
I am puzzling over this, this morning, because yesterday I spent a good deal of time with the phrase that is translated in our English Bibles as “the Lord’s wrath.” If I understand correctly, the word translated as “wrath” (or anger in many versions) is *not* intended to mean the human emotion of anger. Per the NET study note on Exodus 15:7, the word is a metonymy of “cause.” It is a figure of speech evoking cause->effect. So more like what we moderns call karma than the picture we form when we think of a wrathful person.
I am posting more thoughts on this myself shortly, because of these LA fires and the sense we get that they have a dimension outside the natural. But it is an error, IMO, to imagine that that non-natural dimension is something like human vengeance or temper tantrum.
Of course I could be completely wrong…
That is a really interesting point you bring up. I don't have enough expertise in Hebrew grammar to make a definitive conclusion but the that nature begets consequence does seem to track with a number of other biblical ideas (which is usually a good sign of interpretation in my book). Thanks for exploring with us!
You are very kind. Thank you for reading my comment, Austin. God bless you.
You're on the right track when you say we need a Christocentric view of this issue (when isn't this true??). However you neglect to mention the whole the caanites are giants issue and how Joshua (the same name as Jesus!) is doing what the flood did to giants since God said he wouldn't flood the world again (which was in part to deal with the giants) it's not like the caanites were your run of the mill idolaters, they were deeply engrossed in sin in a way that in our Christian influenced world we find hard to even imagine. Another issue that couldn't been brought up viewing this Christocentrically is that with Jesus we have the solution to sin whereas under with the nomos (Torah/Law) you can only deal and manage sin hence why you have to do the Day of Atonement ritual yearly. So Joshua, and later David, destroying the giants (nephalim) of caanan is part of merely managing the problem of sin, but with Jesus the problem of sin is dealt with in a permanent way where even a crumb is able to make the women's daughter clean (perhaps eucharistic language??). Also, the women's daughter is plagued with an "unclean spirit" (Mark 7:25). In biblical terms unclean almost always mean mixture, a call back to giants being the byproduct of fallen angels intermingling with humans ( see Genesis 6).
Knit pick: "c.f." is used to indicate contrast/disagreement "The realm of the forms does not exist (cf. Plato)". "See" is used for supporting evidence "God created the world (see Genesis 1).
This is fantastic. I have never heard the correlation between Jesus and the Cannanites.
Not only did you give a comprehensive and powerful explanation, but you wrote your article in a very intriguing way.
Most of the time I read articles on here you get one or ther other. So Great job!
P.S. I have listened to Alex O'Connor have multiple polemics against the Christian answers to this 'Moral Dilemma'. (Was actually listening to the podcast with the Knechtles). I has wanted to write my own article on how to defend Christianity but you did a perfect job. So thank you for the resource!