Exodus 6-11

God responds to Moses' stinging accusation. He assures that Egypt will not only let Israel go, but Egypt will beg Israel to leave, and in fact Israel will loot Egypt. But He offers something a little bit special to Moses. He offers him a revelation of himself. He says "I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them."

That's a pretty big claim. God was going to give Moses a revelation that not even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had! They knew God as the Almighty, but they did not know his true NAME. But that doesn't entirely make sense. From scripture, we know that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all called God Yahweh. 

What does Exodus 6:3 really mean? As for Exodus 6:3, I went into the original language, and I found that the Hebrew word "Lo" was there. The Hebrew word "Lo" is an interrogative particle. That means that the translation could be rendered "By my name Yahweh was I not known unto them?" Or, we could look at the definition of the name Yahweh that God gave Moses in Exodus 34:6-7. In other words, God was revealing something about his character that had never been seen by Israel before.

God does this by delivering Israel with 10 wonders. Now, God is not just waging war against Pharaoh. God is waging war against the gods that the Egyptians trusted in. God directly attacks multiple Egyptian gods, and conquers them, asserting his superiority.

The Egyptians worshiped the two gods named Khnum and Hopi. Khnum was the guardian of the Nile and Hopi was the spirit of the Nile. The Nile becomes the first victim of God's wrath. But Pharaoh's magicians were also able to turn water into blood, so Pharaoh refuses to let Israel God.
The second plague was the frogs. Their god Heqt would oftentimes appear as a frog. Yahweh shows that He controls the frogs, not Heqt. Yahweh turns their god against them. Heqt cannot stand before Yahweh. 

The biggest slap in the face came when God makes the sky dark. The darkness is so terrible, that the scripture describes it as "darkness that can be felt." He challenges the sun gods themselves. Horus, Re, Aten and Atum. He systematically goes through, and destroys all of their gods, and shows Pharaoh, the "god-king" that there truly is only One Almighty God, and He will deliver His people.

Lastly, I want to address this issue. Throughout this portion of scripture we see that God hardens Pharaoh's heart. What exactly does that mean? Some have argued that to harden Pharaoh's heart means that God made Pharaoh purposefully defiant. Others have said that God strengthened Pharaoh's resolve. Now, there is a very subtle distinction between these two positions. One is Calvinistic, and the idea being presented is that God gave mercy to Israel and delivered them, and God changes their hearts to one that is responsive to grace. But God shows His wrath to Pharaoh by making his heart irresponsive to grace. Whereas the later is Weslyan / Arminian. The thing being emphasized is that God was just allowing, or encouraging Pharaoh to do what he wants to do. The difference is very subtle, but it speaks volumes to God's character. Did God sovereignly decide to harden Pharaoh's heart to be unrighteous, or did God encourage Pharaoh in his own free will?