Does God have evil thoughts? [With reference to Exodus chapter 32, verse 14]

In this verse in Exodus, Moses appeals to Yahweh not to destroy the Israelites who had been practising idolatry. According to the text, Yahweh relents from destroying them. In some versions of the Bible this is described as “The LORD relented from the evil that he was about to do to his people.”

The idea that God can commit ‘evil’ is fairly nonsensical in many Christian theological viewpoints. God is often regarded as the ultimate source of good, and God makes the decision over whether an action is good and evil. Whatever God decides is good is therefore ‘good’.

There are problems with this view. While few Christians would say that God is held accountable to an external standard of what is good or evil, logically it makes sense to insist that God is consistent. Good is always good; evil is always evil, and therefore God must be consistently good in order to be described as good.

Additionally, the idea that God is the final authority on what is good or evil has been criticised. For example, God’s definition of good or bad could be described as just ‘moral relativism’, but one step removed. So, instead of human beings arbitrarily deciding what is right or wrong, that decision is arbitrarily made by God. To proponents of this view, an action by any rational being must be judged against a constant universal moral law. Morality cannot be self-defined. If that is the case, then God’s actions could be described as either ‘good’ or ‘evil’.

Back to the text
But that debate may be unnecessary. Looking at the particular text, the Hebrew word translated as ‘evil’ is ‘rah’, which can also be translated as ‘harm’ or ‘misery’. It is usually translated as ‘evil’ where it occurs in the Old Testament. For example, in the Authorised Version (King James Version) it is translated as ‘evil’ 442 times out of 663 uses. The same root word is used in Jonah chapter 3, verse 10, when “God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to [the citizens of Ninevah].”

More modern translations don’t interpret ‘rah’ as ‘evil’ For example the verse in question in the New International Version of the Bible, translated in 1980, says: “the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”

This different translation does show more clearly how God uses ‘evil’ (or ‘harm’) to punish or protect. The word ‘rah’ applied to God’s activity is always in context of destruction for sin, or against those who would oppress the innocent. Often, it is not even the case that God needs to act for ‘rah’ to happen. God’s inactivity, or decision not to protect a person, can allow evil to befall people as they reap the whirlwind of their sinful activity (Hosea chapter 8, verse 7).

There are two big questions here based on two very big assumptions. The first is the assumption that there is a major difference between the way God is depicted as acting towards human beings in the Old Testament compared to the New. The second assumption is that human beings have free will, which God ignored when God chose to ‘harden Pharaoh’s heart’.

God in the Old and New Testaments
God is revealed in different ways in the Old and New Testaments – as Yahweh, the god of Israel in the Old Testament, and as an incarnate human being in the New Testament. In some respects, it would be expected that if the mode of revelation is different, then the image of God would appear to be different too.

However, there are striking similarities between the two Testaments. There is an emphasis on sin needing to be accounted for, especially through the shedding of blood. In the Old Testament this takes place in the Jewish sacrificial system; in the New Testament God provides the perfect sacrifice, his own Son. Taken this way, God’s ‘attitude’ is the same – there is a gulf between humans and God caused by human sin, which God wishes bridged in order to have a loving relationship with humanity.

Free will and hard hearts
Those who adopt a theology that emphasises predestination probably do not have too much of an issue with God ‘hardening Pharaoh’s heart’. If God decides who shall be saved, and who shall be punished for their sins, then this passage presents little or no problem. God decides that Pharaoh will be punished for his sin, and so causes or allows Pharaoh to have a hard heart. (In addition to God’s stated intention to harden Pharaoh’s heart, the story in Exodus states on three occasions that Pharaoh decides himself to harden his own heart (1) and God presumably lets him.)

Quite why God would deliberately choose to harden Pharaoh’s heart is a matter of conjecture. It may be that God sought to liberate the Hebrews through mighty acts as a revelation of God’s divine powers and to confirm that Moses was God’s messenger. The plagues visited upon Egypt acted as a testimony that Moses was telling the truth – and ensured the Israelites followed him. If Pharaoh had agreed to let the Hebrews leave immediately, how many would have followed Moses into an uncertain future?

Those who want to adopt a less rigid view on predestination, may see God’s actions here as deliberately undermining Pharaoh’s free will. However, the incidents already cited where Pharaoh decides to harden his own heart do counteract that assumption. In Exodus chapter 3, verse 19, before Moses goes into Egypt, God tells him that “the King of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him.” This seems to imply that Pharaoh would need a compelling reason to free the Hebrews because his heart was already ‘hard’.

God acts by ‘not acting’
If God knew Pharaoh would harden his heart and chose not to act in such a way as to prevent that happening, then God is effectively allowing Pharaoh to harden his own heart. In a sense, God is causing Pharaoh’s heart to harden by notintervening to prevent it from happening. God’s intention is thus accomplished by God’s omission, not by God’s action. By predicting Pharaoh’s hard heart to Moses, God prepares Moses for the necessary struggle ahead, because it is only through that struggle that God’s mighty acts will be witnessed by all the Hebrews.

So, in conclusion, God had a reason to let Pharaoh behave the way he did, and could be said to have caused or allowed Pharaoh’s hard heart, without negating the fact that Pharaoh freely chose to act that way. Through the Exodus, God self-reveals as the liberator of the oppressed. In the drama of the Passover is a foreshadowing revelation of the great redemptive act that came when the ‘Lamb of God’ died on the cross. The Exodus reveals God’s very nature to the liberated Hebrews; and to Christian believers too. Pharaoh’s hard heart had a part to play in that. Such a revelation may not have been received if, when Moses told Pharaoh that Yahweh’s message was ‘Let my people go’, Pharaoh had just replied ‘Yeah, okay’.

Notes and references
1 – Exodus chapter 8, verse 15 and again in verse 32, and chapter 9, verse 34.

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I have a question about Exodus chapter 34, verse 20. Why doesn’t God want first-born donkeys as a sacrifice? I can understand why he’d want us to redeem our first-born son, but donkeys…?

Exodus chapter 34 recounts God making a new covenant with the Israelite people after the Ten Commandments were inscribed on new stone tablets. Exodus chapter 32, verse 19 records that the original stone tablets were smashed by Moses when he returned to the Israelite camp and saw the people worshipping an idol in the shape of a golden calf.

The covenant in Exodus chapter 34 is a reaction to the Israelite idolatry. Verses 31 and 14 contain a command to destroy the idols of other races; verse 17 explicitly states “Do not make cast idols.” As part of this campaign against apostasy, all the first-born are to be given over to Yahweh (verse 19), except for donkeys and children.

Children were sacrificed in religious rites of the cultures surrounding the Israelites and so this explicit command not to sacrifice children is an important way of distinguishing between worship of Yahweh and worship of idols.

This injunction is an almost word-for-word repetition of Exodus chapter 13, verse 13, where the reason for sacrificing the first-born is to remember the deliverance of the Israelite first-born sons on Passover night (Exodus chapter 12, verse 29).

Animals that were sacrificed as an act of worship were generally then eaten, either by the priests, or by the family who offered the animal for sacrifice. The main function of sacrifice in the region of Arabia (where the events of Exodus are located) was to drain the blood, which was thought to contain the life of the animal. Once this was done, and token parts of the animal were burned on the altar, the meat was eaten.

In a nomadic society where meat was a luxury, this meant important meals were sacred events too. The consumption of the sacrificed meat also strengthened the bond between the god it was sacrificed to and the worshippers. This connection between those who eat the flesh and the god to whom it was sacrificed has, of course, been taken into Christianity through the practice of communion (also known as Mass; Eucharist; the Lord’s Supper), with ‘bread’ replacing meat.

Although donkeys are not mentioned by name on the prohibited list of food in Leviticus chapter 11, it may be that there was a general aversion to eating donkey meat. Donkeys were useful as pack animals, and were used in farming (Deuteronomy chapter 22, verse 10). In Numbers chapter 18, verse 15, the priests are ordered to redeem every firstborn male of unclean animals. Only oxen, goats and sheep were to be sacrificed and eaten (verses 17-18).

If a donkey was not redeemed it’s neck was to be broken. This was to underline that as a firstborn male it belonged to Yahweh. Presumably this command was given to ensure that people did offer the lamb instead (or the money mentioned in Numbers chapter 18). The order is simple – pay Yahweh his due or lose the use of the donkey.

Thanks for your question, SD

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