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Help for Bearing Up Under SufferingChoosing the Best Way of Life
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For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘For this very cause I have let you remain, that in connection with you I may show my power, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.’
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Help for Bearing Up Under SufferingChoosing the Best Way of Life
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9. How did Pharaoh reveal himself to be a ‘vessel of wrath’?
9 What Jehovah God may cause or may allow to develop in the lives of people can reveal just what kind of “vessels” they are. The Pharaoh on whom Jehovah, through Moses and Aaron, served notice for the release of the enslaved Israelites continued to harden himself against the Most High. As one plague after another came upon the Egyptians, this Pharaoh became more stubborn in his refusal to let the Israelites leave Egypt as a free people. Thus he revealed himself to be a ‘vessel of wrath,’ meriting destruction for rebellious defiance against the authority of the Supreme Sovereign, Jehovah God. At the same time, the cruel, unjust treatment given to the Israelites amply demonstrated that they were deservedly in need of mercy, pity or compassion.
10. By allowing Pharaoh to maintain his defiant course for a time, how did Jehovah make a great name for himself?
10 Note, too, that the apostle Paul called attention to the fact that God’s name was involved in Jehovah’s allowing Pharaoh to continue in stubborn defiance. If this haughty ruler had been destroyed immediately, there would not have been the opportunity for Jehovah God’s power to be made known in such an extensive and diversified way, humiliating the many deities of the Egyptians and the magic-practicing priests. The ten plagues, climaxed by the destruction of Pharaoh and his military forces in the Red Sea, were such an impressive display of divine power that for years thereafter the surrounding nations were still talking about it. Thus the name of Jehovah came to be declared throughout the earth, bringing glory and honor to that name, and moving honesthearted ones to recognize his supreme position.—Joshua 2:10, 11; 1 Samuel 4:8.
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