2. We proceed to notice what is said of _God’s purpose_ in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. It is the more important to speak of this because an extreme view is sometimes taken of the central passage (Ex. 9: 14–16); “And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up for to show in thee my power,” etc. The extreme view referred to is that God made Pharaoh a great king, put him on a high throne, for the avowed purpose of displaying his own great power in his sin and punishment. By consent of Hebrew lexicographers, the verb translated “_raised up_” means in this case _preserved alive_――have _caused thee to stand_ or continue among the living. The previous context moreover seems not to be quite accurately put in our English version. It should rather be thus, beginning with v. 14: “For at this very time I am sending [present tense] all my plagues to thine heart and upon thy servants and upon thy people that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. For I might now have stretched out my hand and smitten thee and thy people with pestilence [_i. e._ might have smitten you all dead], and thou wouldest have been cut off from the earth. But truly for this very reason have I preserved thee alive to the end that thou mightest show forth [make others see] my power, and for the sake of proclaiming my name in all the earth.” To the same purport are the words (Ex. 14: 17, 18) with reference to the final destruction of Pharaoh’s host; “And I will get me honor upon Pharaoh and upon all his host, etc. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I shall have gotten me honor upon Pharaoh and upon his chariots and his horsemen.” The great thought is that God turns to account the sin and madness of Pharaoh for the purpose of making known his power to save his people and to crush their foes. He shapes his ways of providence to this end. He might have swept off Pharaoh and his people with the same pestilence which destroyed so many of their cattle; but he had a wiser purpose. He could make a better use of their sin and of their life; so he spared them till he had wrought all his wonders upon Egypt before all the nations of the earth; and then he let them plunge into the mighty waves of the Red Sea and make their grave there!――――Now if wicked men _will sin_, who shall object against God that he makes the best possible use of it? Why may he not reveal his power thereby and exalt his name as one “mighty to save” or to destroy? 3. It only remains to ask――What has God taught us of his character as bearing on the question before us, and of his agencies in the existence of sin?