The Hardness of Extrication: Narratival
Interpretation of the Moses/Pharaoh/God
Encounters
Kurt Anders Richardson,
McMaster University
The collection of papers for the NSSR 2000 meeting
concerning Moses, Pharaoh and God tends repeatedly to
highlight the problematic of God's prerogatives in
either covenant or lordship over creatures. The
classic problem of divine influence over human will
and action is complexified by the introduction of
massive political, military and religious authority
embodied in the person of Egypt's ancient ruler. The
difficulty of reconciling divine action through human
beings and human beings' own fundamental freedom to
act comes into sharpest relief in the particular
prophetic narrative that dares to comment on the
confluence and contradiction of divine and human
action. Rather than recourse to a set of logical
propositions, the scriptural reasoner/ theologian
must 'extricate' meaning for a logical question that
has been begged by the text. The story of Moses'
prophetic attempts to extricate Israel from its
enslavement to pharaoh seems to require the
enslavement of pharaoh to the ways of God.
Shaul Magid's paper focuses upon the penal nature
of God's dealings with Pharaoh in the Exodus
narratives. Punishment falls upon the ruler precisely
because God's covenantal dealings extend to and
include him, rather than working as a sign of
exclusion. Magid utilizes a 'Jewish' reading that is
communal--referencing a range of interpretive
traditions within the history of Jewish reading.
Unlike the quick aside of Hauerwas to an
authoritative reading from Catholic tradition that
supposedly solves the fixation of Protestants upon
the sole authority of sola scriptura, Magid
explores his tradition by lining up rival
interpreters without meta-theological claims about
authority, whether exclusive or inclusive of
tradition. [12]
Still, there are inevitable theological
propositions about the message of the texts which
Magid cites: the intergenerational reception of
scripture such that the voice of God is heard always
and everywhere that it is heeded; the divine image in
human beings and therefore their free-will capacity
for repentance and faithfulness as necessary for
covenantal ethics. But what if God blocks this
capacity? It could be that the question is irrelevant
if the narrative simply requires a following, having
its own integral authority to state what it states.
But this is not how the history of interpretation has
gone, whether it be strictly exegetical (Rashi),
exegetical / philosophical (Nahmanides), or
altogether philosophical (Maimonides). For the second
and third methods, the narrative becomes exemplary of
those who continue in 'unremorseful sin' such that
they lose their free will and 'the right of
partnership with God.' Following hard upon the
story of Joseph, the counselor of Pharaoh and savior
of Egypt, the house of Jacob and the nations, the
story of the Exodus presents another savior, [13] Moses, who
must extricate his people not because of provident
designs, but by divine command, of which the plagues
are a vital part. Magid notes their role 'as a
necessary tactic' and becoming 'an essential part of
the exodus.' In moving through his interpretive
options, Magid's rendering inclines away from making
an ontological distinction between human natures of
Israelites and of the nations toward a view of
covenant that includes Pharaoh and the nations. Then
Pharaoh's impenitence (his sin: the enslavement of
Israel) becomes necessary for the full exacting of
divine punishment. Had he changed, God's response
would have been leniency. Over and over, mention of
Pharaoh's hardness of heart is rehearsed as a marker,
justifying the next plague 'just as the Lord had
spoken through Moses.' The stubbornness affords the
opportunity for the Lord to display his 'signs' among
the nations. God asks Pharaoh through Moses, 'How
long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?
Let my people go, so that they may worship me.'
Exodus 10 presents the half-hearted response of
Pharaoh to the Lord: he will allow Israel's temporary
departure without their livestock and he prays to the
Lord. But this is insufficient. Up to this point, the
divine purpose as revealed to Pharaoh has been the
allowance of Israel to enter the wilderness to
worship God apart from their subjugated condition.
All the way along there has been an unspoken
conflict: God really wants Israel out of Egypt
permanently; Pharaoh does not want to lose Israel as
his property. Like the evasiveness of Abram as a
vulnerable sojourner in Egypt (cf. Gen 12:17-20),
there is a certain evasiveness in Moses' strategy
because of the vulnerability of enslaved Israel.
That Pharaoh must undergo a kind of 'bondage of
the will' in order that Israel might be delivered
from their bondage is striking here. Magid cites the
'anti-Rashi' Maimonides who regards the hardening of
willful, unremorseful sinners as 'prevented from
repenting so that they be punished' (p.15). Thus we
have 'the loss of free-will is only a punishment
resulting from free-will' (16). Having abused power,
Pharaoh loses power though he still resides within
covenant relationship. What is significant here is
that in order to find a most satisfactory
interpretation, Maimonides' philosophical,
wider-ranging reflections on scripture and its
implications are chosen over the first and second
methods.
At the philosophically sophisticated level of
reading one may address issues raised by Vincent
Cornell and Stanley Hauerwas. For Cornell's emphasis
upon God's unity in all reading of Qur'an we have a
kind of internal apologetic for God's being and
action--though not for God's existence. Ultimately,
God's supremacy must be affirmed and therefore human
submissiveness is the only appropriate response; one
that must nevertheless be volitional. What is at
stake in the Moses / Pharaoh narrative is the
submission of one ruler to a greater, divinely
appointed one in the person of Moses. Rather than the
sin of slavery, it is for the sin of the 'outrageous
claim of divinity' (p. 5) that Pharaoh will be
punished as an illegitimate authority. The decisive
sign of God's action is not the death of the
firstborn but the defeat of pharaoh's army which
destroyed his divinity claim. Citing Ibn al-'Arabi,
The Bezels of Wisdom, Cornell indicates that
it is the sovereign claim of God that must thwart the
illegitimate sovereignty of Pharaoh.
In Hauerwas we have a respectful resting upon
traditional Christian readings of scripture by the
pre-modern theologians starting with Origen. But the
great allegorist takes us only so far with respect to
questions of human will and divine will. By citing
Paul in Romans 9:14-20 we move close to the classic
observations of Augustine and the positing of the
great Western Christian problem of the 'either / or'
in all encounters between God and human beings.
Augustine and later Aquinas present a mystery of
co-action so that the greatness of divine will always
makes room for the infinitesimally weaker human will
so that both accomplish what is according to their
natures. The emphasis here is then on mystery and is
rooted in Romans' great question as an answer to why
God hardens whose heart he chooses to harden: 'But
who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with
God?'
Hannah Arendt, in her great posthumously published
work Willing, reminds the reader of her early
study of Augustine and the novelty of Paul's
introduction of the dilemma of free will into western
philosophical discourse. Just when one is waiting for
an answer to the final question on the entire matter
of divine will and human will, Paul answers with a
question and therefore with no answer. God must be
acknowledged for who God is. The scriptural
narratives are respected but the readings do not miss
this point either. What is unresolved is the dilemma
of opposing will and so the narratives always remain
essential texts of the mystery. The only real
question left to the interpreter: has the freedom of
reading scripture endangered itself such that reading
ceases to be?
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