Interview with Old Testament Figures – Pharaoh: His name is synonymous with rebellion against God and oppression of the helpless. R.C. Sproul, an American theologian said of him, “All God had to do to harden Pharaoh’s heart or to harden your heart, is to withhold His grace.” Michael Hart, an American author referenced him in one of his books and said, “Revolution does have to be violent precisely because the Pharaoh would not let you go. If the Pharaoh would let you go, the revolution won’t have to be violent.”
On his part, Carl Sagan, an American astronomer said, “Nearly everyone in ancient Egypt exhorted the gods to let the Pharaoh live ‘forever.’ These collective prayers failed. Their failure constitutes data.” Our guest for today is the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt when God freed the children of Israel from their 400 years of bondage.
Shepherd Heart: Thank you for honouring our invitation dear Pharaoh.
Pharaoh: I am delighted to be here. It is a privilege to be given an opportunity to reach your readers with my own version of the Biblical narrative.
Shepherd Heart: Kindly give our readers a pen portrait of yourself.
Pharaoh: I ruled Egypt between 1279 and 1213 BC in both political and religious spheres. One of my functions was to serve as an intermediary between the various deities in the country and the people. Thus, I deputised for the gods in civil and religious matters. Consequently, I owned all the land in Egypt, enacted laws, collected taxes and served as commander-in-chief of the military.
I was also responsible for maintaining cosmic order, balance and justice, and part of this included going to war when necessary to defend the country or attacking others to obtain their resources, when it was believed that this would contribute to cosmic balance in Egypt.
Shepherd Heart: The children of Israel had arrived in your kingdom more than 300 hundred years before you were born. It is clear that you knew about the work Joseph, the Prime Minister under one of your predecessors did to sustain the Egyptian people during the great famine. Why did you choose to oppress them?
Pharaoh: They clearly had outlived their welcome. Even though they were useful to us in the construction of our pyramids and other important structures, they were not contributing to the development of our nation in other economic spheres.
Shepherd Heart: So, why did you refuse to let them leave in peace when Moses approached you for this purpose?
Pharaoh: No Pharaoh worth his salt yielded to intimidation. Moses approached me in the name of a deity that I knew not, nor had encountered.
Shepherd: If you claim that they were not useful to you except as construction workers, what was your plan for them? Did you intend to keep them as slaves in perpetuity?
Pharaoh: My people and I had plans to reduce their population to a manageable size. That was why I enacted the decree to kill all their male infants.
Shepherd Heart: Your plans for them smacked of evil cooked up in the pit of hell. What happened to mercy? Did you not have even an ounce of compassion for a people that contributed to the growth and development of your country, especially under the reign of Joseph?
Pharaoh: (Laughs) You are being ridiculously sentimental and ignorant of the workings of ancient regimes. In my time, humans did not have nor enjoy fundamental rights. The word of the king was law and some kings were treated like the gods. No. I did not have any sympathy for the Hebrews. I considered them inferior to my people and treated them accordingly.
Shepherd Heart: Now, let us move on to your encounter with the God of Moses. What was your initial reaction when Moses invoked the name of his God to demand freedom for his people?
Pharaoh: I was actually amused. Here was a coward who ran to Midian to escape justice after killing an Egyptian showing up in my palace to throw his weight around in the name of an unknown god. I laughed in his face of course.
Shepherd Heart: So, when did it occur to you that you were not dealing with Moses, but with a force greater than yours?
Pharaoh: I started panicking when my wise men and sorcerers could not counter the plagues that Moses and Aaron, his brother were unleashing on my people. To be candid, when the power show began, I thought that we were contending with powers acquired by Moses in his sojourn in Midian. Nothing prepared me for an encounter with the God of the universe. We were not brought up to believe in a supreme being called God. Egypt and neighbouring countries had their plethora of gods.
Shepherd Heart: When it became obvious to you that your enemy was none other than the Creator of the cosmos, why did you not surrender meekly and let the Hebrews go?
Pharaoh: I did let them go.
Shepherd Heart: You let them go and later changed your mind. Biblical narrative is clear that you pursued after them with your entire army.
Pharaoh: That was a very silly and petulant act on my part. I allowed my military commanders to lure me into committing suicide at the Red Sea with the best of my men.
Shepherd Heart: With the benefit of hindsight, how would you have handled that situation in the interest of your people?
Pharaoh: When you are power drunk as I was, you do not think rationally. Looking back at the entire saga, I would say that I acted selfishly and without any consideration for the well-being of my Hebrew slaves. If I had an opportunity to make amends, I would have treated them with more dignity. They did not deserve what my people and I did to them for years.
Shepherd Heart: You said earlier that ancient monarchs were power drunk. That is not a malaise of the past as there are still political leaders in our time who act that way. As the saying goes, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” What is your advice to political leaders who abuse power in this time and age?
Pharaoh: Death is a leveller, meaning that no man born of a woman and through any other means like the test tube miracle of your age can escape death. The main reason why people oppress others is that they do not ever believe that they will one day stand before God in judgement or be incapacitated by old age or debilitating illness. When you sit on the throne, as I did, you see things differently from ‘normal’ folks because you are surrounded by praise singers who only curry favour from you.
Your so-called advisers do not tell you the truth because they do not want to incur your displeasure. Remember that nothing in life is permanent. Whether you like it or not, you will leave this earth in death, and your body will return to the dust from where it came. My candid advice to you is that you should remember that Almighty God is recording everything you do on this earth.
You may be powerful and wealthy enough to control everyone in your enclave, country or kingdom, but God is totally outside your control. Show mercy if you wish to receive His mercy at the end of time. If you are reading this interview, it means that you are alive and still has the opportunity to repent. I did not have that privilege. Make good use of yours and do not end up like me.
Shepherd Heart: Thank you very much for sharing your heart with her readers. We pray that those who have been using their positions to oppress others would have a rethink and repent from their wicked ways.
Pharaoh: Thank you once again for having me.