Let me ask you ask this question. Was pharoah able to obey God when the Lord, through moses, asked him to let his people go? No! Becuase God hardened his heart so that through him he could display his power to the world.
Yes he could have, command implies ability.
Didn't you read & understand what I posted in your other thread?
The only way that God hardened Pharaoh's heart is the same way that I would harden some one's heart by offence.
One could say that I hardened that person's heart, but he actualy hardened his own heart.
Same with God hardenning Pharaoh's heart by offence.
A proude Pharaoh being commanded by a lowly shephard. Pharaoh being offended by Moses and hardened his heart.
In that way, one may say that God hardened (offended) Pharaoh.
God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart
SO THAT His name might be publicized in all the Earth, God would have done that no matter what, either way, weather Pharaoh obeyed or disobeyed. However, Pharaoh chose the wrong way.
DO NOT THINK that God commanded Pharaoh one thing and made it so that he couldn't obey, as you are implying.
You imply that God made his will known to Pharaoh by commanding him to free Israel, then God made it so that Pharaoh couldn't obey by hardening his heart.
This is rediculous.
Tell me, do you read my posts?
I covered this already.
There is good reason for which God chooses to be gracious to and to whom HE will show mercy on.
God knows the heart of man. HE knows if & when they will choose to yield or not as we all have the ability.
Any other reason would be discounting the obligation and culpability of man
God will be gracious to & show mercy on those HE knows will yield. For this is the character of God.
God is not stating that He is arbitrarily choosing whom he will be gracious or not, for that is against His character.
It is not saying that He can do anything He wants arbitrarily; choosing with out criteria, just because He is God, for God's character has a boundary.
God has His own reasons for mercy which are based upon standards which has been before creation and are according to His character.
He is...
selfless, Just, righteous, loving, compassionate, peaceable, gentle, and easily entreated, full of mercy, without partiality...ect...
They were blinded because they refused to belive (2Corinth 4:4) They walk in darkness (1John 2:11) because the refuse Christ (2Corinth 3:14)
The way that God has blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts; so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, and be converted, and He should heal them (John 12:39) is by the effect of the Gosple on them (Isa 6:9-10).
The effect of the Gosple to some is hardening of the heart because of their pride, they, themselves, are to blaim.
Do not blaim God.
Again, that is the effect which they, themselves chose to take from the Gosple.
When it says that "God gave them" it is like saying that I told my neighbor the Gosple and from that I gave him a "spirit of stupor" I heardend his heart because of the Gosple; he was to proude to recieve it.
The way you talk, you take the guilt & blaim off of man and put it on God.