Q: In this passage, it has been suggested that God was telling Moses to deliberately lie to pharaoh, indicating that the people would return to Egypt after a few days when they had no intention to do so. Is that correct?
There are at least two possible answers to this apparent moral lapse by God:
1. R. Alan Cole (Tyndale Commentaries) suggests that this was merely meant to be the first offer in a series of typical elaborate Oriental bargaining sessions (note the counter offers by pharaoh in Exodus 8:25, 8:28, 10:11, and 10:24).
2. Since it is stated that God knew beforehand that pharaoh would not agree to any form of exodus, no
subterfuge was needed in the request. The purposefully modest offer of just a three-day journey, and a
subsequent rejection of it, showed up clearly his hardness of heart from the very start.
The only instance in which it might be argued that God taught deception is found in I Samuel 16:1-3, where God suggests a subterfuge, but not an actual lie, to keep Samuel from being killed by Saul.
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