Why does God harden Pharaoh’s heart? Why did God not simply “soften” Pharaoh’s heart, show him the error of his ways, and bring about the emancipation of the Hebrews in a peaceful and loving way?
Without question the “arteriosclerosis of Pharaoh” is a complex subject.
Traditional Jewish commentators point out that early in the encounters between Moses and Pharaoh, the text states that: “Pharaoh’s heart stiffened.” (E.g. Exodus 7:22; 8:15) or “Pharaoh became stubborn” (Exodus 8:10; 8:28). Later, (beginning with Exodus 9:12) the text begins to say: “the Eternal One stiffened Pharaoh’s heart.”
This shift, according to the commentators, reflects the view that inertia-the unchecked hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (his stubbornness)–took the matter out of his hands.
His evil took on a life of its own.
In Studies in Shemot, Nehama Leibowitz compares the unchecked acts of evil Pharaoh committed to those of the title character in the play Macbeth. At first, Macbeth is reluctant to do wrong. He certainly fears to lay hands on his King, Duncan. With each succeeding murder, though, the voice of his conscience wanes until it can exercise no control over his treacherous impulses.
When in Act III, Lady Macbeth, who first encouraged her reluctant husband to kill the King, voices her reservations about Macbeth’s reign of terror, Macbeth responds: “Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.” (Act III, Scene 2, line 55). In other words, the evil has taken on a life of its own; Macbeth can no longer control himself. So it was with Pharaoh.
In Rabbinic literature, belief in God and the study of Torah help a person fight the inclination to do evil. Rabbi Simeon ben Levi said:
“The evil inclination of a person waxes stronger day by day.
It seeks to kill him. If God did not help, a person could not
overcome it.”
(B. Kiddushin 30 b).
Implicit in this text is the notion that a person must enlist God’s help to fight the inclination to do evil. God will not do it for us unless we consciously make the effort.
Rabbi Akiba (second century C.E.) foreshadowed Shakespeare’s insight in
Macbeth when he described the inclination to do evil this way:
“At first it (the inclination to do evil) is like a spider’s thread and
at last it is like a rope of a ship.”
(Genesis Rabbah 22:6).
In other words, only through diligent effort and appeal to God for help, can humans overcome the inclination to do wrong. When we persist in evil, when we ignore God’s will, evil takes on strength greater than we can control.
Those uncomfortable with such direct references to the Almighty, but who still seek guidance from traditional texts, might choose to substitute, “appeals to the conscience” for “enlist God’s help.”
God, then, did not actually harden Pharaoh’s heart. God allowed Pharaoh to continue on the course that he had chosen. God allows all of us to do the same.
In Pirke Avoth (III: 19) we read one of Jewish thoughts most enigmatic teachings: “All is foreseen. Yet free will is given.” As the rabbis understood God, the Almighty has prior knowledge of what would happen. At the same time, the rabbis uphold the ability of human beings to make moral choices of their own volition. So, for the Rabbis, the fact that God announces that the Almighty would harden Pharaoh’s heart (first in Exodus 4:21 and again in 7:3) does not mean that God is responsible for Pharaoh’s evil. Pharaoh is.
Finding Ourselves In The Bible 
Dear Rabbi Fuchs:
Within the closing-and-concluding caption of this week’s parshah-related commentary ….
In Pirke Avoth (III: 19) we read one of Jewish thoughts most enigmatic teachings: “All is foreseen. Yet free will is given.” As the rabbis understood God, the Almighty has prior knowledge of what would happen. At the same time, the rabbis uphold the ability of human beings to make moral choices of their own volition. So, for the Rabbis, the fact that God announces that the Almighty would harden Pharaoh’s heart (first in Exodus 4:21 and again in 7:3) does not mean that God is responsible for Pharaoh’s evil. Pharaoh is.
…. you bring — for me, at least — an extremely important point containing both the topic as well as the concept of free will to the forefront.
For G-d to delegate to us — created in His Image — the position of “Directing-” / “Deciding-” / “Responsible-Agent” is nothing less than the ultimate opportunity to evolve-and-transcend our previous identities.
At Yale University in New Haven of Connecticut — in their Epilepsy Research Progrram (“basic” [post-doctoral] “research” in 1993) — both Susan Soloway Spencer, M.D. (program Director) and her pioneering husband Dennis Dee Spencer, M.D. (program Surgical Arm) provided for me that afore-mentioned privilege of deciding my fate, with regard to the privilege to opt for their program’s life-saving / -altering surgical procedure.
In so doing, I “internalized” the inseparable attributes of both freedom and responsibility, as we transcended “natural evil,” of which had resulted from meningococcal meningitis (a disease of the central nervous system comprised of both the brain and spinal column).
Victor E. Frankl, M.D. stated the case eloquently in his literary work entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning:” ….
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the nuts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
(Frankl, V.; 2006; pp. 65-66)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frankl, V. (2006). “Man’s Search For Meaning”. Beacon Press (Boston).
Thank you, so very much, Rabbi Fuchs, in helping me — immensely so — to locate myself in our Torah-related narrative(s).
Genuinely and always.
In appreciation,
Mark David Loveland
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Wow, Mark! What a beautiful essay you have shared with us! Thank you!
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