“And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.”
So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him: this is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says — how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go so that they may worship me. The question how long will you refuse? is the most direct moral challenge Moses has made to Pharaoh. After seven plagues, after confession and retraction, after confirmed evidence and hardened response, God asks through Moses: how long? Psalm 13:1–2 uses the same question of God: how long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? The how long question runs through Scripture in both directions — the oppressed crying it to God, and God asking it of those who persist in rebellion. The call to humble yourself — kana in Hebrew — means to bring oneself low before power greater than one's own. It is the one thing Pharaoh has consistently refused.
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