Why Did God Harden Pharaoh's Heart? — Rashi, Maimonides, and the Big Picture

A Competition Between Gods

The question that is asked again and again about the Exodus story is this: why does God, the creator of the world and Father of all mankind, use such a measure as the hardening of Pharaoh's heart? If the objective is only the release of the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, would it not be more expedient and faster to just allow Pharaoh to release the children of Israel?

The answer lies in what the ten plagues actually were. The ten plagues which God inflicted on the Egyptians were not only plagues against the people of Egypt, but also against the gods of the Egyptians. Blood was against the god of the Nile river, the lifeline of Egypt. Other plagues were against the gods of the livestock of Egypt, and others against the sun god, who was one of the main gods of Egypt. The competition and struggle was not only between Moses and Pharaoh, but between the One God of Israel who created the whole world, and the idolatrous Egyptians who worshiped many gods. Freedom for Israel was ultimately the demonstration of the God of Israel's power — the One God against the multitude of gods. The Hebrew nation was the candle in the wind, the light for the rest of history of mankind as a demonstration of the One God and the victory over the idols of Egypt.

The Lord actually reveals another reason to us why He went to such a length of 10 different plagues — first touching on the assets of the gods of Egypt, the river, the livestock, the agriculture, and then on the flesh of the people themselves, and finally on their most precious possession, their firstborn children and livestock, and even the house of Pharaoh himself. The Lord does all this so that we can tell the story of the Exodus and proclaim God's power and justice. "And that thou mayest tell" — God spoke to Moses, who is the representative equivalent to all of Israel.

This is why God hardened the heart of Pharaoh — in order to demonstrate to the rest of history that the God of Israel is the God of the whole world. The deliverance of Israel from slavery into freedom was not a natural event, not a political compromise, not a financial consideration, but a designed and pre-ordered prophetic fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, as recorded in Genesis chapter 15.

The Educational Purpose — Ibn Ezra, Rashi, and Maimonides

Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra — one of the most distinguished Jewish biblical commentators and philosophers of the Middle Ages, born in Tudela in present-day Navarre, Spain — helps us understand this. The Hebrew language of the Torah indicates the reason for the hardening of Pharaoh's heart with the following concepts: "That I might show," "They ought to consider," "That they might understand." There is an educational purpose in God's action with Pharaoh. You can't bring a calamity or plagues on a nation without giving them a chance to repent and change their ways and do what is right. This is the right thing to do, even if you know that your enemy will not agree with you and will not respond favorably.

It cannot be that a despot, an emperor, a ruler of such a great nation will be scot-free, and Egypt will not have some consequences for around 200 years of abuse, and even an attempt to delete the Hebrew nation by killing the male newborn children of the Hebrew slaves. The principles of God's action with the hardening of Pharaoh's heart are both educational and an insurance for the future history — that when there is one nation that enslaves another, life can't just go on and no attention is given to the abuse and meanness against innocent people.

Rashi — one of the greatest medieval commentators of the Hebrew Bible — says on Exodus 7:3:

What Rashi says here is that God gave Pharaoh five plagues without hardening his heart, but actually strengthening Pharaoh's heart. There is also another phrase translated in the English as "harden the heart." In this second phrase that appears in Exodus 4:21 and 7:13 and all through the story of the Exodus, Pharaoh himself "strengthens his heart." He becomes stubborn and refuses to release the children of Israel. The Torah uses three different words to describe what amounts to a single description of Pharaoh's stubbornness.

In the Hebrew it is clearly visible in the language: Pharaoh hardens the life of the Israelites with hard labor, and God hardened Pharaoh's heart. There is here a classic "measure for measure." As you already know, Yeshua gave a very clear teaching on this issue:

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon insists that all mankind has free will. Everyone can choose to do good, or bad. The ability to choose freely defines us as human beings — our choices define us as humans. The freedom to choose is an essential and inherent human right, but we must remember that our choices always have consequences. Pharaoh's heart became "heavy" and hardened, because he didn't want to lose such a valuable financial commodity — slaves, cheap labor. He refused to change, even when he recognized God's existence.

God's Nature Is Also Our Nature

In the texts of the Bible we find terms like God is angry, and jealous, and loving, and He is long-suffering (patient) and God even hates, as it says both in the prophets and in the New Testament, "Jacob have I loved and Esau I have hated!" The Torah speaks in human language and terms so that we can understand that God's nature is also our nature. We were created in His form and in His nature. We have that divine spark, the soul, that is given us and it is eternal, as the text of the New Testament says even about Hell, "Where the soul never dies!"

We should all know that God, as our Father, the Father of all of His creation, has limits for both His grace and His love, and also limits to His wrath and anger. For each one of us and our nations, we ought to be careful not to transgress and ignore God's limits on either side of His spectrum.

We know that according to the Torah, especially Israel, God's chosen, has and does pay for our sins against God and our sins against our fellow men. We have 4000 years of history and the seed of Abraham. The prophet Isaiah put it plainly:

"Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, That her warfare is ended, That her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." — Isaiah 40:2 [NKJV]

The Children Come First — and Passover Commands Us to Remember

This is why we are commanded to do Passover every year. The Lord God of Israel always puts the children in the first place, and cares about the next generations. This is why we are commanded to tell the story of the Exodus every year, and always start with our children and end with our children. Here is the direct command from the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth:

Not only the Jews, but also those from among the nations that have left idolatry behind and joined Israel through the blood of Yeshua, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. In the spirit of God every one of us was in Egypt before Yeshua the Rock of our salvation took us out of our own private Egypt and offered us the promised land of God, the land where the sun is the Son of Righteousness, and the light does not come from the sun, but God Himself is our light.

This fate has been the fate of every Jewish leader and nation across history. The world needs to look to history and see that God's promises to Abraham are valid today as they were in the days of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, ancient Rome, and Byzantium, Germany's Hitler — and the leaders of Iran are standing in line to experience the same fate as all their predecessors. Only when we look at the big picture can we really understand the justice and the righteousness of God in all His actions put together. The God who brought Israel out of Egypt is the same God who promises: