Many have struggled with the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. How is it fair? Pharaoh was willing to let them go!
But that wasn’t the point. The point was not simply, “Let my people go.” The point was that Egypt had enslaved God’s people – brutally mistreated them – even slaughtering their baby boys.
God’s point is that Egypt needs to suffer for what they have done.
Abraham Lincoln understood this point well – as he put it in his second inaugural address in 1865:
“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'”
God has a habit of making nations pay for their sins. There are many wars that are too complex to give a simple answer for. But I think Lincoln was right. More than 600,000 men died in the Civil War because of slavery.
And that is what God is saying to Moses. Egypt cannot escape God’s judgment for what they have done. Even if they free the slaves and let them go –
No, God will not let them get away with it that easily. Judgment is coming...
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