The prosperous paradise became a desolate graveyard in a matter of weeks. The air was unbreathable. Pests invaded homes and raided pantries. Livestock perished by the thousands. Leprous skin diseases broke out. Darkness covered the land, and even the water turned to blood.

This is not a scene from an apocalyptic movie, however. It was real life for the ancient Egyptians during the plagues God sent to compel Pharaoh to fear the Lord and free the Israelites from slavery. But more jaw-dropping than the severity of the plagues themselves was Pharaoh’s spiritual schizophrenia—his flip-flopping inconsistency. He begged for mercy when the plagues were too hard to bear, but hardened his heart the moment things got better. When he couldn’t take anymore, he cried, “Plead for me . . . This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong . . . Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you” (Ex. 8:28; 9:27; 10:24). Even his advisors warned, “Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” (Ex. 10:7).

Yet, as soon as the skies cleared and the frogs croaked their last, the Scripture says, “But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said” (Ex. 8:15; cf. Ex. 8:32; 9:34; 10:20, 27). He did not hate his sin—he hated the consequences of it. He despised discomfort, not disobedience. His heart ached because of the suffering caused by his sin, but not because of sin itself. 

But before we point too many fingers at Pharaoh, we would do well to look in the mirror. How often do we mourn over our sin only because it seizes our comfort, robs our peace, and afflicts our consciences? We are often more upset by the plagues sin brings upon our lives than by the fact that sin is offensive to our holy God. And let’s be honest: if we could sin without consequences, many of us would do so without hesitation and harden our hearts even worse than Pharaoh. That is not sin-hating repentance at all—it is damage-control.

As the Puritan John Owen wrote, “We must hate all sin, as sin, and not just that which troubles us. To seek mortification only because a sin troubles us proceeds from self-love . . . A man who only opposes the sin in his heart for fear of shame among men or eternal punishment from God would practice the sin if there were no punishment attending it.” In other words, genuine repentance is marked by grief over what sin is, not merely by what sin does (2 Cor. 7:10). As believers, we should hate our sin not simply because it harms us, but because it grieves and defies the God who saved us from it.

---