We are in chapter nine of Exodus with our word for today. חָטָא miss a mark, wrong, offend, sin, be culpable, bear the loss, go wrong, become liable to a penalty, be at fault, guilty. It is used 235 times in the Old Testament, 2 times in our chapter. The basic idea of our word is to miss or fall short. A good example of falling short of a target is Judges 20:16 Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred select troops who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not יַחֲטִֽא miss. We also see a good example of the idea of coming up short or lacking in Job 5:24 You will...find nothing תֶחֱטָֽא missing. Most of the time in the Bible we find our word used in the sense of a person falling short of God’s standard. This is how our word is used in our chapter today. Exodus 9:27-35 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have חָטָ֣אתִי sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Plead with the Lord, for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.”…When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he לַחֲטֹ֑א sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go.
Pharaoh’s confession was motivated by having enough of God’s thunder and hail. Pharaoh calls it God’s because he knows and believes what Moses said earlier that God would do this. And this is the first time he said I will let you go. We know that his confession was only motived by the hail because once it stopped Pharaoh would not let the people go. Notice Pharaoh’s sin is called hardening his heart. He is making the choice to harden his heart. God is not making him do this here but rather using it. God is not the author of sin as the Bible is very clear about. James 1:13-15 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. So God is not responsible for Pharaoh’s sin the consequences of Pharaoh’s sin belongs to Pharaoh. Now right after this event with the hail. God does harden Pharaoh’s heart as it clearly says in the very next verse. Exodus 10:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants. This contrast right next to each other of Pharaoh hardening his heart and then God hardening Pharaoh’s heart is significant because I think it shows that there is a point when God has had enough and we have gone too far and now our free will choices will be limited. My guess on this is because God knows that we have loved and welcomed sin into our life so much that we just don’t want to change. And since God knows this he uses it to glorify himself. Either way God uses Pharaoh’s hardened heart this way as it specifically says in the rest of verse one and verse two (Exodus 10:1-2). I will close with this warning to us all that we don’t want to see how much sin we can get away with because it damages our ability to connect with God. Jesus gave us a parable of cleaning the house and applied it to the reality of the spiritual battle we all face every day between good and evil and who we are becoming more like. Matthew 12:43-45 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
