“He changed their heart to hate His people — 

To behave cunningly with His servants.”

(Psalm 105:25)

Now, wait one minute! Did you notice what the text states here? Who made Egypt hate Israel? Who made Egypt act deceitfully toward Israel? It does not say that Egypt began hating Israel because they saw Israel as a threat (which they were!). What it says is that God changed their hearts so that they would hate Israel and that God made Egypt act deceptively toward Israel.  So many people in churches today cling desperately to the notion that they have free will or to notions that God loves everybody. Yet, passages like this are scattered throughout the Scriptures. They remind us that God is sovereign and that while we are responsible for our actions, God superintends them from before the foundation of the world. And, while God does have great love for His elect, he hates the reprobate and keeps them under his hand of judgment (2 Peter 2:9-10).

Thus, it is not just Pharaoh’s heart that God hardened (Exodus 9:12; 10:20), but the heart of all the people of Egypt was hardened against Israel. What is the result of a hardened heart? Hatred and deceit. Why Did God do this? He did so to show His wrath and to destroy Egypt (Romans 9:22) but also so that the people of the earth would fear Him and worship His name (Romans 9:17). Such is part of God’s promise to Abraham (Genesis 15:13-14).

Does that mean that God caused Egypt to sin? Indeed, the Hebrew verb נכל (nakal — “to deceive/behave cunningly”) is in the hithpael stem, meaning that it is a reflexive action that was caused to take place. Reflexive verbs mean that the one taking action is also the one receiving the effects of the action taken. How is this? God is causing the Egyptians to hate His people and as the people act deceptively toward the Israelites, they are also causing damage to themselves — heaping up condemnation upon condemnation into their lives. Such is the nature of sin; it harms the sinner as well as the one sinned against.

In short, while God was causing the Egyptians to do what they most naturally wanted to do and was not restraining their sin as He did in Joseph’s time, God is still sovereign over their actions. God is not guilty of sin — the Egyptians are — but God has indeed brought this about. He has caused it to take place. Such is the consistent teaching of Scripture and such is the plain reading of this psalm. While I may have been somewhat sarcastic in my wording when I began this reflection as I embrace the teaching of Scripture and the complete sovereignty of God, for many, this verse is a fly in the ointment of their humanistic, “free-will” theology.