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
What is the significance of Isaiah 5:3–7?
The Lord describes Israel as his vineyard. Referring to himself, he says that the owner of the vineyard loved his vineyard and did all he could to care for it. “[H]e expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (vs. 2). Then the Lord asks, “What more was there to do for my…
How do you respond to Romans 8:29?
“For whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.” One of the greatest treasures given to believers when they open their hearts to the Lord is the promise that they shall certainly be “conformed to the…
What is the significance of Deuteronomy 8:2?
Moses tells the Israelites that the Lord kept them in the desert forty years “in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.” In the classical view, God would have of course eternally known the character the people would develop in the…
How do you respond to 2 Samuel 16:10?
David says of Shimei’s cursing him, “If he is cursing because the Lord said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’” Some compatibilists cite this text to suggest that David regarded evil deeds, including cursing, as taking place in accordance with the sovereign will of God. If we accept…
What is the significance of 1 Samuel 23:9–13?
“David heard that Saul knew that he was hiding in Keliah. Saul was seeking to kill David, so David wisely consulted the Lord as to what he should do. David said, ‘O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has heard that Saul seeks to come to Keliah, to destroy the city on my account.…