In the scroll of Exodus, Israel is in slavery, oppressed by the violent and unjust King of Egypt.

And so, God appoints Moses to be his liberator, to go and tell the Pharaoh to let my people go.

When Moses comes to the Pharaoh and delivers this message, Pharaoh says,

What? Who's this God Yahweh? I'm the King of Egypt and I will do what I want to do with these slaves.

In other words, come at me, I dare you.

A human just challenged the one who is as if they're on equal ground.

And God says, let me introduce myself.

Yahweh's name is to be associated with the liberation of all creation from the power of the snake.

When Yahweh meets the snake in the form of an imperial king who won't acknowledge the true God,

it's time to crush a snake.

We're going to look at these conversations that Moses has with Pharaoh before the 10 plagues begin.

It is in these passages that God famously hardens Pharaoh's heart.

And what Yahweh is going to do now is not harden the heart of an innocent Pharaoh

who would have done otherwise.

Rather, he is accelerating and intensifying the self-destruction of an empire that has already chosen its way.

God says later about Pharaoh, I raised you up for this very purpose,

that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the year.

The Apostle Paul says, reflecting on this,

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

Yahweh is known through acts of creation and liberation in having immense mercy on his chosen ones

more than they deserve.

And then God's name is equally made known by bringing down the powerful and the oppressors

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