The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart
Is it fair for God to harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that Pharaoh has no choice but to act cruelly — and then gets punished for it anyway?
God says plainly that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that Pharaoh will not let the people go. But the Hebrew text is more layered than that single English phrase suggests. Three different Hebrew words are used across the narrative to describe this hardening:
- chazaq, meaning to harden or strengthen
- qashah, meaning to be hard, severe, or fierce
- kabad, meaning heavy, weighty, or burdensome
The story uses these words in a clear order:
- God announces it before anything happens (4:21; 7:3).
- Pharaoh’s heart “was hard”, with no one named as the cause (7:13, 14, 22; 8:19; 9:7, 35).
- Pharaoh hardens his own heart (8:15, 32; 9:34).
- God hardens Pharaoh’s heart — but only from the sixth plague on (9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17).
That order is the key to the passage. Pharaoh’s hardness comes first and is his own. God’s hardening comes later, as a judgment that confirms the choice Pharaoh has already made, again and again.1 Israel’s neighbours later read the story the same way: “Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did?” (1 Sam 6:6). God does not force an unwilling man into evil. He gives a stubborn man over to the stubbornness he has chosen.
Pharaoh’s own agency in this is clearest during the devastating plague of hail, where he first admitted that he had sinned — and then, the moment the hail stopped, sinned again and hardened his own heart.
In Revelation
The plagues return in the trumpets and the bowls, and so does the hardened response: “they did not repent” (9:20–21); “they cursed God… and did not repent” (16:9, 11). People become like what they worship. Those who cling to idols that cannot see or hear end up unable to see or hear themselves.2
So the message to the reader is plain: do not be like Pharaoh. You know how this ends. Unlike Pharaoh, you have already seen the far shore of the sea, where the redeemed sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb (15:2–4). The time to turn is now, while it is still called “today” — “do not harden your hearts” (Heb 3:7–8, 15).