>"Then Pharaoh hurriedly called for Moses
>and Aaron, and he said,
>'I have sinned against the
>Lord your God and against
>you. Now therefore, please
>forgive my sin only this
>once, and make supplication to
>the Lord your God, that
>He would only remove this
>death from me.' (Moses)
>went out from Pharaoh and
>made supplication to the Lord.
> So the Lord shifted
>the wind to a very
>strong west wind which took
>up the locusts and drove
>them into the Red Sea;
>not one locust was left
>in all the territory of
>Egypt. But the Lord
>hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he
>did not let the sons
>of Israel go."
>
>During the first seven plagues of
>Egypt, Pharaoh hardens his heart
>of his own accord and
>refuses to release Moses.
>But, in the eight, ninth,
>and tenth plagues Pharaoh relents.
> However each time the
>Lord now hardens Pharaoh's heart
>and keeps Moses and the
>Israelites in Egypt. This
>begs for an eschatological/teleological explanation
>- all things must move
>forward to a predetermined event.
> In this case I
>think it's the symbolic importance
>of Passover - would the
>story of Exodus be different
>if the Israelites were released
>after the seventh plague?

Responce: I'm not quite sure what your saying here but oh well just tell me if I'm off. No, not at all what the Pharoah did was according to his own free will, when God hardened his heart it was by means of grace( God let up the plague the pharoah heart grew hard, so God was responsible because he let up). So since God did not force the pharoah to keep the isrealites pass his own free will then you can't say that the Pharoah ever would have let them go after the seventh plague.

>Later on Pharaoh has reservations
>about pursuing the Israelites into
>the Red Sea, but once
>again the Lord hardens his
>heart and forces the action.

Responce: Correct. But God did not harden his heart outside of his own free will.

> Christian philosophy imposes a
>teleolgical structure on history -
>everything that has happened or
>will happen is structural and
>directed towards the Apocalypse -
>literally "the revealing" in Greek,
>the revelation of God's divine
>plan. What do you
>think? Have any alternate
>explanations?

Responce: I'd have to agree. The Lord did raise the Pharoah up to show his power. But this does not knock out free will in any way, it just amplifies that God is sovergn .