How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? (Exodus 10:3)

 “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?” (Exodus 10:3)

In the latter stages of the plagues on Egypt, Moses asks the question, “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?” I believe that it is one of the critical questions of the Bible, and it is a question that was not only posed toward Pharaoh, but also must be asked of each one of us. We all have a tendency toward hardness of heart and toward stubbornness. 

But wait! Hadn’t Pharaoh already humbled his heart? In the previous plague, when hail had devastated the crops and servants and cattle who had been foolishly left in in the field were destroyed as well, hadn’t Pharaoh responded like this: “I have sinned this time; the LORD is the righteous one, and I and my people are the wicked ones” (9:27). The words were right. But, when it comes to humbling ourselves before God, it is more than just a matter of right words. It is a matter of the heart - heart humility. And Pharaoh’s soon-after conduct revealed that, though his words were good, his heart hadn’t changed: “But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart, he and his servants” (9:34). 

So humility before the Lord can prove to be a difficult thing, and it has proven to be a rare thing. There is noise about it. There is discussion about it. But there is relatively little of the actual doing of it - to be brought low before the Lord, and to realize deep down in our hearts that we cannot fool God; that there is an insurmountable distance between our lousy lowliness and His holy highness. And the question is, when has heart-humbling last happened to me, and when will it happen again, this humbling before the Lord. How long? When exactly?

In the midst of the locust devastation that follows Moses’ question, “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?”, Pharaoh seemingly repents again: “I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you” (10:16). Or does he? How many times does he repeat this act, without his heart being changed? And how many times have we done the very same thing, only to return to the same old pattern of living in which self is honored above the Lord? No, he hasn’t really repented. Once again, it is just words. And once again, we also have made the same kinds of promises. “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?”

For Pharaoh, the string runs out. After the locusts, there is darkness. After the darkness, there is death, the death of the firstborn. That’s the end. But it’s not. Pharaoh does indeed release the Israelite slaves, to go worship in the wilderness. But then he changes his mind, because his heart was never changed, and he chases after them. The people of Israel miraculously escape through the parted waters of the Red Sea, but God brings the waters back over the heads of Pharaoh and his army. What was that question? “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?” The answer is, for Pharaoh, “Forever.” He will refuse God forever and ever, confirmed by His death and continuing throughout eternity. And I don’t want that to be you, and I don’t want it to be me.

The problem of a hard heart vs. a humble heart is a tough one, in that our hearts are the source of our wills, not the objects. We do not fully have our hearts in hand, to change them as we see fit. Our hearts are “the real you,” and re-creating your identity is more than just re-branding. It requires real humbling and real repentance. But that is only preparatory for the real work of the Spirit of God to re-shape our hearts according to God’s will and ways. It’s the deep work of God in our lives that Pharaoh desperately did not want to happen, and that we continue to resist so much of the time.  

Stubbornness must give way to surrender; 

    Independence abandoned for submission; 

        Mighty pride melted by the weakness of humility. 

May the Spirit of God accomplish this in us today.