Romans 9:17

For the scriptures saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.

The most careful attention should here be directed to what is not said by Paul in this appeal to Exodus 9:16. God did not say to Pharaoh that he had raised him up in order to destroy him, or to drown his army in the Red Sea, but that God had raised him up for the purpose of showing his power in Pharaoh and of having God's name published throughout the earth. Just HOW God's purpose would be fulfilled in Pharaoh, at the time God spoke, still remained within the circumference of Pharaoh's free will to choose, whether by his own submission to God commands or by his rebellion against them, would be realized God's purpose. If Pharaoh had submitted to God's will, God's name would have been magnified all over the world and his power would have been demonstrated in Pharaoh just as gloriously in that manner as it was in the manner of its actual occurrence. Pharaoh had the free choice of obeying or not obeying God; but God had purposed, either way, to use him as a demonstration of God's power and a means of publishing the divine name all over the world; but the choice of HOW this would come about remained with Pharaoh until he was HARDENED. See more on the latter under Romans 11:7.

What happened to the king of Nineveh, following the preaching of Jonah, should be remembered in the connection here. Both Pharaoh and the ruler of Nineveh heard the word of God, the one by Moses, the other by Jonah. Nineveh received mercy; Egypt did not. God had a perfect right to spare one and punish the other; but it is a falsehood to allege that God's doing so was capricious and unrelated to what was in the two monarchs or to their response to God's word. It definitely was related to their response. Pharaoh repeatedly to Nineveh, on the other hand, called his whole nation to sackcloth and ashes, leading the way in penitence himself, with all of his royal court. A mere glance at the two monarchs reveals why one was spared, the other not. And note too that even in the case of Nineveh, it was even there a matter of God's grace; for God owed absolutely nothing to either monarch, either to the one who hardened his heart or to the one that repented - hence the propriety of Paul's remark that God had mercy upon whom he would, and whom he would he hardened.

But there was a dark and threatening shadow of doom for Israel in Paul's introduction of the case of Pharaoh whose repeated triflings with God's word had resulted, at last, in God's judicial hardening of the evil monarch's heart (after Pharaoh himself had hardened it ten times!). This was exactly what God had done to Israel, and the awful knowledge of it was almost breaking Paul's heart. The thrust of that terrible word "hardened" at the end of Romans 9:18 was pointed squarely at Israel; and Paul would announce it formally in Romans 11:25, but here it was only mentioned. Before the dreadful truth would be thundered in the oracle of the eleventh chapter, Paul would continue to build the logical foundations leading up to it; and it cannot be doubted that herein lies the purpose of bringing Pharaoh into these verses.