We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
How do you respond to Psalm 105:25?
Speaking of the Egyptians, the Psalmist says,“…whose hearts he [God] then turned to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants”
Some compatibilists cite this verse as evidence that God meticulously controls human hearts. If so, we must accept the conclusion that even grotesquely wicked hearts like Hitler’s and Stalin’s were exactly as God willed them to be. Fortunately, the passage does not require this conclusion. It speaks specifically of the Egyptians’ hatred of the Jews.
God’s plan was to develop his people while they were in Egypt for four centuries (Ps. 105:24), then to deliver them and bring them into the promised land (bringing divine judgment on the Canaanites for four centuries of wickedness in the process [Gen. 15:16]). At this critical juncture in human history it fit God’s providential plan to turn the Egyptians’ hearts in this fashion. This display of sovereignty is noteworthy to biblical authors precisely because it is atypical.
Even here, however, we should not assume that God was the originator of the hatred in the Egyptians’ hearts. It’s not as though the Egyptians would otherwise have cherished the Israelites as good neighbors were it not for God “turning their hearts.” The Israelites were already abused slaves at the hand of the Egyptians. God’s “turning” only intensified what was already there. It is similar to God’s activity of “hardening” hearts (see How do you respond to Joshua 11:19–20?). God could have done this simply by shutting down other avenues by which the Egyptian hatred of the Jews could have been dissipated or suppressed.
This way of reading the text does not make God a co-conspirator with every wicked person (and angel) and retains the moral responsibility of the Egyptians. Given Scripture’s pervasive insistence that God is in no sense aligned with evil and that free agents are responsible for their own inclinations and behavior, it is, I submit, to be preferred over the compatibilist reading.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Q&A, Responding to Calvinism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Psalm 105
Related Reading
Are you an annihilationist, and if so, why?
Annihilationism is the view that whoever and whatever cannot be redeemed by God is ultimately put out of existence. Sentient beings do not suffer eternally, as the traditional view of hell teaches.I’m strongly inclined toward the annihilationist position. The reason is that it strikes me as the view that has the best biblical support. I’ll…
How do you respond to Matthew 21:1–5?
Jesus commanded his disciples, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this: ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately” (vs. 1-4). Though this verse…
What about the thief on the cross?
Question: You hold that most people who are saved will nevertheless have to go through a “purging fire” to have their character refined and fit for heaven. Whatever is unfinished in our “sanctification” in this epoch must be completed in the next. But how does this square with Jesus telling the thief on the cross,…
How do you respond to Zechariah 12:10?
“when they look on the one they have pierced, they shall mourn for him…” Hundreds of years before Christ was born it was declared that he would be pierced (cf. John 19:24–27). Detailed prophecies such as this one help convince us that Jesus is the Messiah hoped for in the Old Testament. The ministry and…
How do you respond to Mark 14:13–15?
In planning for the Passover meal, Jesus tells his disciples, “Go into the city and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’…
Was Noah’s flood global or local?
Though many regard the biblical story of a great flood in the days of Noah to be an ancient legend, evangelical Christians affirm it as historical fact because Scripture presents it as such. However, a debate has arisen during the last two hundred years as to whether the flood was global or local. Those who…