Hardened-Heartedness in Parshiyot Va'era & Bo

(1) Free will is granted to all men. If one desires to turn himself to the path of good and be righteous, the choice is his. Should he desire to turn to the path of evil and be wicked, the choice is his.
This is [the intent of] the Torah's statement (Genesis 3:22 : "Behold, man has become unique as ourselves, knowing good and evil," i.e., the human species became singular in the world with no other species resembling it in the following quality: that man can, on his own initiative, with his knowledge and thought, know good and evil, and do what he desires. There is no one who can prevent him from doing good or bad. Accordingly, [there was a need to drive him from the Garden of Eden,] "lest he stretch out his hand [and take from the tree of life]."

(1) AND I WILL HARDEN PHARAOH’S HEART. The Rabbis said in Midrash Rabbah: “G-d revealed to Moses that He was destined to harden Pharaoh’s heart in order to bring judgment upon him for he caused them to work in cruel bondage.” It is also stated there [in Midrash Rabbah]: “For I have hardened his heart. Rabbi Yochanan said, ‘This provides a pretext for the heretics to say that G-d did not allow Pharaoh to repent.’ Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said, ‘The mouths of the heretics be closed! Only, if it concerneth the scorners, He scorneth them. When He warns one on three occasions and he does not turn from his ways, He closes the door of repentance on him in order to punish him for his sin. Such was the case with wicked Pharaoh. After the Holy One, blessed be He, sent him five times [the request to let His people go] and he paid no attention to His words, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: You have stiffened your neck and hardened your heart; I will double your defilement.’”
The Rabbis [in the above Midrash] have thus discussed the question which all ask: “If G-d hardened his heart, what then was Pharaoh’s sin?” For this there are two explanations, and both of them are true. One is that Pharaoh in his wickedness had unjustifiably perpetrated such great evils against Israel that justice required that the ways of repentance be withheld from him, as is so indicated in many places in the Torah and in the Writings. He was judged according to his wickedness which he had originally committed of his own will. The second explanation is that half of the plagues came upon him because of his transgressions, for in connection with them it is only said: And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened; And Pharaoh hardened his heart. Thus Pharaoh refused to let the children of Israel go for the glory of G-d. But when the plagues began bearing down upon him and he became weary to suffer them, his heart softened and he bethought himself to send them out on account of the onslaught of the plagues, not in order to do the will of his Creator. Then G-d hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, so that His name may be declared [throughout all the earth]. Similar in meaning is the verse, Thus will I magnify Myself, and sanctify Myself, and I will make Myself known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Eternal. And that which He said before the plagues, And I will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go, was merely His warning to Moses of that which He was destined to do to Pharaoh in the last [five] plagues, it being similar to that which He said, And I know that the king of Egypt will not give you leave to go. This then is the meaning of the verse [before us], And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs. That is to say, “I will harden his heart so that My wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt,” since in the last five plagues, as well as at the drowning in the sea, it is said, And the Eternal hardened the heart of Pharaoh, for the king’s heart is in the hand of the Eternal; He turneth it whithersoever He will.

I will harden....Regarding the heart of Pharaoh, we have found three meanings that are subtly different: "I will make hard "I will make heavy", "I will strengthen."

"Hard": to be solid and strong, not to absorb impressions, and not to be influenced by anything.

(11) But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he became stubborn and would not heed them, as יהוה had spoken.

(28) But Pharaoh became stubborn this time also, and would not let the people go.

(7) When Pharaoh inquired, he found that not a head of the livestock of Israel had died; yet Pharaoh remained stubborn, and he would not let the people go.

(34) But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he became stubborn and reverted to his guilty ways, as did his courtiers.

(3) Another explanation: For I have hardened his heart - Rabbi Yochanan said: Does this not provide heretics with an opportunity to open their mouths to say that he had no means of repenting, as it say "For I have hardened his heart". Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said to him: Let the mouths of the heretics be stopped up. Rather, (Mishlei 3:34) If it concerns the scorners, he scorns them. When the Holy One Blessed be He warns a man once, twice, thrice and he doesn't repent, and G-d will close his heart against repentance so that He should not exact vengeance from him for his sins. So to with the wicked Pharaoh, since Hashem sent five times to him and he took no notice, G-d then said: "You have stiffened your neck and hardened your heart; well, I will add impurity to your impurity". Hence, "For I have hardened his heart". What does "I have hardened" imply? That G-d made his heart like a liver (כבד) into which even if boiled a second time no juice enters; so also was the heart of Pharaoh made like a liver, and he did not receive the words of G-d. Hence, "For I have hardened his heart".

(1) קשׁה to be hard, be stiff; to be severe; to be difficult.
— Qal - קָשָׁה 1 was hard, was difficult; NH 2 became solid, became firm.
— Niph. - נִקְשָׁה was hard pressed (in the Bible occurring only Is. 8:25).
— Pi. - קִשָּׁה MH 1 he had difficulty; 2 (in the f.) she had severe labor; MH 3 he made hard, hardened.
— Pu. - קֻשָּׁה was made hard, was hardened.
— Hith. - הִתְקַשָּׁה 1 became hard, became stiff; 2 he found difficult, met with difficulties; 3 (in the f.) she had severe labor; 4 he behaved cruelly; 5 he was reluctant.
— Hiph. - הִקְשָׁה NH 1 he made hard, made stiff, hardened, stiffened; NH 2 he made difficulties; 3 he was stubborn (short for הִקְשָׁה עֹרֶף); PBH 4 became hard; 5 he asked a difficult question, argued against (short for הִקְשָׁה לִשְׁאֹל).
— Hoph. - הֻקְשָׁה PBH 1 was made hard, was made stiff, was hardened, was stiffened; PBH 2 became difficult; MH 3 became hard to understand, became unintelligible. [Related to Aram.–Syr. קֽשָׁא (= was hard, was difficult), Arab. qasā (= was hard, was harsh, was severe, was cruel, was merciless). cp. מִקֽשָׁה ᴵᴵ.] Derivatives: קָשֶׁה, קְשִׁי, קָשׁוּי, קִשּׁוּי, קֻשְׁיָה, קְשִׁיָּה, קִשְׁיוֹן, קַשֽׁיוּת, קַשְׁיָן, הַקְשָׁאָה, הַקְשָׁיָה, הִתְקַשּׁוּת, מַקְשֶׁה, מַקְשָׁן, נִקְשֶׁה, נֻקְשֶׁה.

(3) But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that I may multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt.

(1) ואני אקשה את לב פרעה, “and I will harden the heart of Pharaoh.” Many people ask that if G’d’ hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he refused to release the Israelites how could G’d justify bringing the plagues upon him and the Egyptians seeing these people had acted under duress? Such plagues would represent caprice, undeserved violence by the Creator against people who were not guilty. How can we reconcile this with our concept of a fair and just G’d? Punishing Pharaoh for divinely inspired obstinacy and refusal to change his ways seems unfair. The answer is, of course, that Pharaoh had already been a confirmed sinner, having committed other sins which accounted for his forfeiting the right to do Teshuvah, repentance. If his only sin had been that he refused to let the Israelites go, and G’d had indeed made his heart stubborn on that score alone, punishing him would indeed have been doing violence to his rights as a human being.
Pharaoh’s original sin versus the Jewish people has been spelled out in Exodus 3,5 where he used the natural (or unnatural) increase of the births amongst the Jewish people as a pretext to “outsmart” them and to kill their babies. Seeing that he had displayed his wickedness for all to see without having been interfered with by G’d, the time had now come when his punishment was that he was deprived of his free choice. Had G’d allowed Pharaoh and his people to become penitents He could not even have punished them for what they had done up until now. We have proof of this from the story of Jonah and Nineveh. G’d accepted the repentance of the people of Nineveh and they completely escaped punishment. This is why G’d had to find a stratagem to prevent the Egyptians from becoming penitents at this stage. (2) A Midrashic approach based on Shemot Rabbah 13,3: Rabbi Yochanan said that this verse provides the heretics with ammunition and enables them to claim that if Pharaoh did not do Teshuvah it was G’d’s fault, not his own. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish replied that on the contrary, this very verse is an answer to the heretics as it demonstrates Solomon’s saying (Proverbs 3,34) “at the scoffers He scoffs, but to the humble He shows grace.” G’d had issued three successive warnings to Pharaoh and he had failed to respond to any of them. As a result, G’d slammed the door to Teshuvah shut. It is only after the fifth plague that the Torah actually uses the transitive form of “G’d hardened Pharaoh’s heart,” instead of the intransitive “Pharaoh’s heart remained hard” (compare 8,28 and contrast with 9,12). (3) According to this Midrash the words which G’d spoke to Moses in our verse where He said: “I will harden the heart of Pharaoh,” refer to the last five plagues. We observe that several times when the plagues were really hurting the Egyptians Pharaoh weakened and made promises and offered compromises to Moses until in the end he reneged. The reason he reneged was that G’d hardened his heart although without such interference he would have given in much sooner. G’d had provided an additional rationale for all this when He said (9,16) “in order for My name to become a household word all over the earth.” This is analogous to Ezekiel 38,23 והתגדלתי והתקדשתי ונודעתי לעיני גוים רבים, “Thus will I be exalted and sanctified and become known in the eyes of many nations, etc.” (4) You should know that the obstinacy of Pharaoh had already been hinted at to Moses at the very beginning of his career as a prophet at the burning bush when G’d had shown him a bush which burned without being consumed. G’d had compared the multiple troubles and plagues to fire, and Pharaoh and the wicked Egyptians as the bush of thorns which refused to submit to the fire (plagues). This had been G’d’s way of alerting Moses to the remarkable obstinacy which would be displayed by Pharaoh plus the fact that this would be just as unnatural as the spectacle he was observing at the time.

(1) ואני אקשה, seeing that G’d is interested in the sinner’s repentance rather than his death (as we know from Ezekiel 33,11 חי אני, נאום ה', אם אחפוץ במות הרשע כי אם בשובו מדרכו וחיה, “by My life, I do not want the death of the wicked but that he return from his wicked path and live”), G’d told Moses that He would bring on numerous plagues, all in order to increase the chances that Pharaoh would finally see the light and become a genuine penitent. He hoped that by demonstrating His greatness and His power this would eventually cause the Egyptians to recognise all this. At the same time, G’d also spelled out a similar thought in 9,16 but aimed at the Israelites, when He said: “that the only reason He had not yet killed Pharaoh was so that in the course of more plagues you, the Jewish people, would come to recognise both G’d’s greatness and His patience.“ He also wanted the Jewish people to learn how to both love and revere Him when they witnessed and thought about the meaning of all these plagues. There can be no question that without G’d stiffening Pharaoh’s attitude from time to time, he would have collapsed much sooner and would have sent the Israelites on their desired journey. However, this would not have been the result of his repentance and humbling himself before the Lord, involving genuine regret about his previous errors, but the result of his impotence to withstand the pressure applied to him. He would have acted out of terror of what the next plague would do to him and to his country. If we needed confirmation of this, all we have to do is look at what his servants said to him when Moses threatened with the plague of locust. They said to him: “how long will you be obstinate, do you not see that Egypt will go down the drain?!” There was not a single word of regret of past errors, no word of recognition that G’d could have killed them all long before this and that He must therefore be very patient, and kind, but mere terror forced them to utter these words. (10,7) Keeping all this in mind, it is foolish to ask how G’d could punish Pharaoh after he Himself had interfered with his decision-making process by “stiffening his heart,” ואני אקשה את לב פרעה, I will stiffen the heart of Pharaoh, etc.” not in order to punish him but in order to finally trigger repentance in his heart. The operative clause is “in order that I can demonstrate all these miracles of Mine in his midst” (10,1), the purpose being to bring about his humbling himself in repentance and genuine contrition. If that wish of G’d would indeed materialise, the Jewish people also would tell of G’d’s greatness, (למען ספר את שמי, having observed at first hand how the mightiest secular power on earth turned into G’d fearing human beings.) They would tell their children and children’s children the lesson they had learned that G’d’s apparent cruelty is actually an act of loving kindness as it results in His creatures coming to love and to revere Him. [Noach, who had survived the destruction of mankind by a deliberate act of G’d’s kindness to him and his family, had not been able to relate to his children what G’d hoped that the Israelites would be able to relate to their children. Ed.] The basic lesson in ethics we derive from all this is that when suffering an affliction we must first and foremost examine our past actions to find out where we went wrong, and try to find out what these afflictions are intended to trigger in our memory so that we can improve our conduct both vis-à-vis G’d and our fellow man.

(15) When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, יהוה slew every [male] first-born in the land of Egypt, the first-born of both human and beast. Therefore I sacrifice to יהוה every first male issue of the womb, but redeem every male first-born among my children.’

(15) When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to send us out, Adonoy killed every first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of man to the first-born of beast. I am therefore sacrificing to [before] Adonoy all that [is first to] open the womb which are male, and the first-born of my sons I redeem.’

(15) and the magician-priests said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God!” But Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he would not heed them, as יהוה had spoken.

(12) But יהוה strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not heed them, just as יהוה had told Moses.

(20) But יהוה strengthened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.

(27) But יהוה strengthened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not agree to let them go.

(10) Moses and Aaron had performed all these marvels before Pharaoh, but יהוה had strengthened the heart of Pharaoh so that he would not let the Israelites go from his land.

(15) Everything is foreseen yet freedom of choice is granted, And the world is judged with goodness; And everything is in accordance with the preponderance of works.