Wednesday

The Hardened Heart of Pharaoh

Click anywhere below to read.
If you can only read one thing before our meeting start with the link in bold italics.

Exodus 4:18-31 (From Midian back to Egypt)
Exodus 5-11 (Meet Pharaoh, Plagues First to Ninth + Setup for the Tenth)
Skip 12:1-2o (Time to think about the calendar and the Seder — for later, as-way-opens)
Exodus 12:21-42 (The 10th Plague)
Skip 12:43-13:16 (More instructions about the Seder, and new info on what to do with the First-borns— for later, as-way-opens)
Exodus 13:17-14:31 (Between Pharaoh and the Red Sea, again)
A table of Pharaoh’s Heart Hardenings.

The paralysis that I re-membered as part of the story is not really in the text; but the scene and the specificity of my immersion in the story, and the grafting of the story in the condition of the reader is how the Spirit opens eyes and ears and heart to reveal other things that are in the text: I am not talking about “the meaning” in the text, but rather the feeling for the tissue of the story making the heart pump, and saying that the best I can.
The Spirit hardens the heart to make sure the required transformation is not a function of anything but convincement after conviction.