S4E5: Why God hardened Pharaoh's heart and then punished him for it

One of the more perplexing and disturbing part of the Exodus account is when God hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he does not  listen to Moses and let the people of Israel go. But then, God punishes him it by unfolding disasters--the plagues--upon Egypt. But, this seems profoundly unjust! What is the idea that the Bible is presenting about God? That nothing we do matters?

However, it turns out that the message is in fact the exact opposite. There is something far more that is going on in this account. How Pharaoh's heart is hardened describes how we relate to reality, or fail to, what leads to that failure, and then locks us in.           

 3:12     Channels of truth available to the Pharaoh           
 14:18     What it means for the heart to be "hard" to truth           
 23:50     What actively "hardening one's heart" does to you           
 32:00     When God actually hardened Pharaoh's heart           
 34:20      What is really happening when God hardens the heart           
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Chapters

• 3:12 Channels of truth available to the Pharaoh
• 14:18 What it means for the heart to be "hard" to truth
• 23:50 What actively "hardening one's heart" does to you
• 32:00 When God actually hardened Pharaoh's heart
• 34:20 What is really happening when God hardens the heart

Transcript

Pharaohs: these ancient kings of Egypt loom over the history of humanity, their images carved into age-old stone walls and steles, and their opulent tombs hewn deep into the valleys or raised as colossal Pyramids. They reigned over an empire that had endured for thousands of years, revered in life and in death. And the Exodus account places a Pharaoh as the foil and nemesis of Moses.

There, Moses and Pharaoh present a fascinating mirror image of each other. Both were raised as princes in Egypt, but whereas Moses was born a slave, Pharaoh was born a King; both were leaders of a nation, but whereas the Egyptians revered their Pharaoh, their slaves rejected Moses. But, here’s what I think is the most important; Moses hears God speaking to him, but no one would listen to his words, so he needs another person, Aaron, to speak for him. Entire empires will listen and obey the words of a Pharaoh, but he cannot hear God; so, he needs another person, Moses, to hear for him. [1] 

This leads us to one of the most perplexing and disturbing parts of their story. Exodus reports that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he refused to listen to Moses, and hear what God was speaking to him. But then, because the Pharaoh refused to listen, God speaks forth a series of plagues that sweeps through Egypt. And this sounds like the Pharaoh was punished for something that God made him do. But, why?

Later, God would declare to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” These words are even quoted by apostle Paul in the Letter to the Romans in the New Testament Bible, to argue that it is up to God to prepare one person’s life for destruction, while another for salvation. 

Then, wouldn’t this mean that nothing we do matters? After all, it’s all up to God! Not to mention that this sounds profoundly unjust. But, there is much more to what the Exodus account—and Paul’s comment on it—is trying to communicate to us. It is describing how we relate to reality, or fail to; what leads to that failure, and then locks us in. All of that too is God speaking, and even the Pharaoh is not exempt from it. 

So, let’s explore his side of the story in this episode of…

[ music / ] "What do you mean, God speaks?" where we explore important ideas, insights, and stories in Christianity, for the skeptics who want to understand religion, Christians who have questions about their own beliefs, and everyone in between. I am Paul Seungoh Chung, and this is our fifth episode of the fourth season, “Why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then punished him for it.”  

[ / music ]

Every truth is hearing God speak;-truth- is our- contact point with reality that is unfolding around us—which is to say, with “Yahweh” that is speaking forth all things. This is why a person who speaks the truth to us is the closest analogy of God that speaks personally to humanity—you can review Season 1 for the details about that. 

But, just who is speaking the truth? And how do we recognize such a person? That’s where things become difficult. Knowing that is what separates great rulers from the rest. After all, no one can know everything; rulers must rely on their advisors to tell them the truth about things they don’t know, so that they can lead their nations on a right path. So, the question is: who should be our advisors? Which of them aren’t corrupt, or inept, or ignorant? Which advice should be believed and trusted? And this isn’t just for rulers; it’s crucial for every one of us to be able to discern who to listen. There are scams that can ruin our lives; fake news that can misinform us; echo chambers that can trap us in our own prejudices. Sometimes, even we can lie to ourselves to keep us from facing what we’ve really been doing, or who we’re becoming until it’s too late—an addict, or part of an abusive relationship, for example. And it’s difficult to face the truth of such things, which is why in some of these cases, outside intervention is often necessary.

Truth is our contact point with reality—to God speaking—and this means one of the most important responsibilities of any human being is to recognize when someone is speaking the truth to us—even truths we don’t want to hear. Whether it’s your friends who will speak the truth for your sake, or your enemies who may be able to perceive things that you can’t or won’t, or even yourself when you become honest with yourself, the voice of truth—at that moment at least—is the voice of God speaking to you. And to recognize that voice, even when we don’t want to, requires humility. And humility is precisely what a Pharaoh, the ruler of a powerful empire, would have lacked.

This is not at all to say that the Pharaohs were simply arrogant and delusional; Egypt, as a civilization and culture, endured for more than three thousand years with these Pharaohs ruling over it. Even by the time of Exodus, Pharaohs would have already been reigning over Egypt for around two thousand years. To put that into perspective, two thousand years ago for us, was when the Roman Empire was at the height of its power. And that should speak volumes of how resilient Egypt was as a civilization, and of the wisdom of its rulers. The Pharaohs weren’t some despots, ruling over their kingdom however they wanted; they ruled as guardians of a higher principle. 

Ancient Egypt had this concept of Ma’at—you may remember that we briefly explored this in Season 3, episode 6. Ma’at was the principle of truth, order, and justice, which orders the entire cosmos, from the movement of the sun, moon, and the stars, to the behavior of human beings in a just and ordered society. The ancient Egyptians believed that it was by Ma’at that their gods brought forth order out of chaos in the creation of the world, and that without this principle, the world would unravel back into chaos. Human beings were to follow this Ma’at, by being truthful, just, and moral in how they live, and in death, their souls would be judged by a goddess who personified this principle. [2] Pharaohs were no exception; it is only when they ruled through the authority of Ma’at—when they ruled according to truth, law, and justice—that Egypt would flourish and continue to endure.

But, how were they to do this? How can the Pharaohs ensure that their rule upholds this Ma’at? That brings us back to the question of who to listen. The royal court of Egypt had its advisors, including its priests and magicians. We say magicians, but in ancient times, people believed that those in contact with some higher reality—namely the gods—could unlock special powers with proper knowledge and rituals; that was “magic”. In fact, this idea has evolved into our modern concept of technology. Again, we may think in our modern, secular era, that these priests and mages were just part of an old, superstitious system, but that would be rather presumptuous. Priests—of any religion, really, even now and especially then—were the educated elites. They were the ones who studied the writings and the wisdoms of the past, and they were the keepers of knowledge and arts of their civilization. And their gods were representations or personifications of real forces in the cosmos: overarching principles like order, power, or life, or domains of nature, like the air, the sky, the earth, or wind, fire, or rivers, or inner reality of human beings, like our emotions, desires, or ideals, such as love, courage, wisdom, and so on. But, of course, we say they are personifications, but for the ancients, these gods were those things. Again, for details, you can review the first episode of season 3. For here, we need to just remember that for their time, these people were sources of real wisdom regarding how we are to relate to reality that’s all around us. And the Pharaohs would’ve listened to them, to discern whether they were ruling the nation according to Ma’at.

Yet, in the Exodus account, the Pharaoh encountered another source, ones outside this existing system; they did not speak as one of the voices that are acknowledged in their society. These two individuals, Moses and Aaron, came before him as representatives of enslaved foreigners; and they spoke for a foreign god whose name was not part of their religious traditions—“God” they called, “Yahweh,” meaning He That Is. 

There is this series of historical novels, which I believe was written by an Egyptologist named Christian Jacq, and they’re about the Pharaoh Ramses, who turns out to be the Pharaoh in the Exodus account. Except that Ramses is the hero of these novels; Moses appears as an antagonist of sort in one of the books, a member of the royal court and a friend to Ramses, until he turns against Egypt due to his religious fanaticism. [3] Again, the author is an Egyptologist; he is knowledgeable about Egyptian thought and culture, and his sympathies lie with Egypt, not the Hebrew Bible. And he wrote in a scene where Moses and Ramses has a kind of theological debate. Moses speaks about “Yahweh,” declaring that this is “god” that is. Ramses listens to his friend patiently, and then chides him for having such a simplistic understanding of the Divine. There can be a god whose existence is manifest and powerful, a god “that is,” but there is also a god “that is not.” 

What Ramses is saying here is likely referring to how the ancient Egyptians in the city of Heliopolis described their Sun-god.[4] In their mythology, it was the Sun-god who awoke first in the primordial sea of chaos and created the cosmos with his daughter, Ma’at—which is again the principle of order. This god was described as "He who is and he who is not," because the Sun-god had different aspects; “Atum” was the evening sun, “Ra” was the midday, and “Khepri” was the dawn; and dawn is when the sky where there is no sun, becomes the sky where there is sun. So, the name “Kephri” meant “to come into existence". And it seems that the author of the Ramses novels had his protagonist reference this god to critique the Bible’s idea of God as “simplistic.” Except that if you remember our previous episode that explored the meaning of the name, “Yahweh,” you’d know that he has no idea of what he’s criticizing. If anything, the meaning of the name, “Yahweh,” includes this Egyptian idea; it is about how reality is continuing to unfold, so that things that did not exist come into existence—it’s about infinite possibilities that can become real. And the part of the idea that he derided as “simplistic,” by assuming that it’s only about a god that self-exists, is actually saying something far more: it’s pointing out how “God” is not any particular entity inside reality—including the Sun; rather, God is reality, all of reality, and at its most fundamental level, reality just is, without qualifications or boundaries. So, this author, who’s an Egyptologist, knows about Egypt and its gods, and knows them well, but I suspect that his “confidence” from this expertise kept him from realizing that he knows next to nothing about the Hebrews and their idea of God. 

Now, I’ve brought this up because this is what I meant when I said that humility is one thing that the Pharaoh would’ve lacked. I imagine that he was very much like this author of the Ramses novels; he knew Egypt well, he was well-versed in its wisdom and its gods. His wisdom and authority, however, kept him from listening to a voice outside of the world he knew—kept him from even thinking that he would ever need to because of how rich his own world is. And we do that all the time. Think about those stereotypical —yet, too often accurate—figures that appear in our movies or TV shows: European colonialists who dismissed things that Africans or Indigenous peoples, or Asians said, or say college-educated urbanites ignoring the simple opinions rural, working folk. 

But, the thing is: Pharaoh really had good reasons to ignore what Moses and Aaron said to him; as a ruler of a nation, he cannot listen to the demands of any and all people that come to his Court. He did have good reasons—but only for the first meeting.

[ Pendulum ]

What the representatives of Hebrew slaves, Moses and Aaron, requested was that their people be given the permission to take a three-day journey into the wilderness to hold a religious festival for their “God,” “Yahweh.” They raised the concern that failing to do so would bring about some disaster upon their people from this “Yahweh.” Or rather, that was likely the diplomatic presentation of the message that Aaron made to Pharaoh. But, the Pharaoh and his court did not know this “god,” nor feel they needed to. They thought that this was just another superstition that their ignorant, foreigner slaves were getting into recently; slaves tended to do that, after all, whenever they became dissatisfied with their proper station in Life. Or, it might be something even worse; a pretext to rebellion, or at least, to abandon their civic responsibilities altogether and leave Egypt.

So, the Pharaoh did what he thought was upholding the order of his nation. He denied their request, and then administered a “measured” punishment, which was to increase the workload of the Hebrew slaves, then flog them when they failed to keep up. He even took the time to explain to them what they did wrong, so that they learned the standard they needed to follow to be a proper part of his reign. What he did, as far as he was concerned, was to uphold the Ma’at for his nation. And that was that. Except that it wasn’t, because sometime later, Moses and Aaron returned to his court. 

In our previous episode, Pharaoh’s initial response turned the people of Israel against Moses, leaving him dismayed and openly questioning what God spoke to him. But, he was once again led to take one more step. From the time God spoke to him from the burning bush, it was through a series of small steps that God led Moses, and here was just one more—not to convince the Pharaoh, not to bring his people out of Egypt in a single act, but simply to go with Aaron and speak to Pharaoh one more time. However, God says to Moses that there will be more steps, for God will harden the Pharaoh’s heart, which is to say, what reality will unfold before them is a Pharaoh, whose heart is hardened against what they’ll say, and keep Israel enslaved until Egypt is struck with disasters; all of that again is God speaking—what Yahweh unfolds. And this obviously sounds like God will force the Pharaoh refuse to hear God's message, and then punish him for him, but,  as we will find out, that's not quite what happens. But, for now, like Moses, we need to just take the next step and explore what unfolded; and again the next step for Moses and his brother, Aaron, was to meet the Pharaoh again, who this time would demand some evidence for their claims—specifically, a show of mystical powers. When he does, Moses is to have Aaron throw his staff to the ground, which would turn into a snake. And though again voicing his disbelief, by protesting that not even his own people listen to him, Moses nevertheless took that next step.  

And from here, the Exodus account presents Moses and Pharaoh as mirror opposites to each other. God is speaking forth a series of events that will bring the enslaved people of Israel out of Egypt. And Moses hears God speaking from the burning bush, and God tells him to go from the desert to Egypt and meet with Pharaoh. The Pharaoh hears God speaking from Moses, and God tells him to let his slaves go from Egypt into the desert and meet with God. And when Moses hears God, he cannot believe that Pharaoh will listen to him, and so, God shows him a miracle, by turning a staff into a snake. When the Pharaoh hears God, he cannot believe he needs to listen to Moses, and so, God shows him a miracle, by turning a staff into a snake. 

In ancient Egypt, snakes represented—among many other things—wisdom and power, and by turning their staff into a snake, Moses and Aaron were presenting a “credential”  of sort, that they were in contact with some deeper or higher level of reality. But, that was as far as it went, because the Pharaoh’s response was to have the wisemen and the magicians of his court to do the same thing; each of them turned their staff into a snake. This gave him enough reason to dismiss what happened, because others could do what Moses did, and they weren’t telling the Pharaoh to let his slaves go freely into the wilderness to worship their God! 

Here’s a kind of modern comparison to what this would’ve been like. So say, a couple of individuals appear on the News one day, sounding an alarm for some imminent disaster caused by what we’ve been doing—an environmental catastrophe, like climate change, or a health crisis, like cancer epidemic caused by smoking. And yes, we are the Pharaohs in this example, since in our democratic societies, we—the people—are the sovereigns, or at least we are supposed to be. So, what then would we do? Well, we’d probably first want to know what credentials they have for making such claims—do they know what they’re talking about? Then, say it turned out they’re actually eminent scientists in those fields, and they show their data. Well, that’s concerning. But then, the fossil fuel or the tobacco industry calls up their own scientists, and they produce their data, which seem to say that we don’t have to worry. See, truths are our contact point with reality—with God speaking—but sometimes, there are competing voices for truth. So, which is really the voice of truth: the voice that brings us into that contact with Reality—with God?

And Exodus reports that Pharaoh’s heart “was hardened.” The wording here is very significant. Different translations all point to an existing mindset or attitude. Pharaoh’s mind was set, and what Moses and Aaron did was not enough to change that. Because that’s how it works; we tend to keep our existing views or position on things, until there is something that makes us change. And when his wisemen changed their staffs into serpents, what Moses and Aaron did failed to be that something. Except that there was one thing he pointedly ignored; that snake of Moses devoured all the other snakes.   

Then, God speaks again to Moses. “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. So, go and confront him in the morning on the bank of the Nile river, with the staff that changed into a snake. Say to him, “Yahweh, God of the Hebrews has sent me to say to you, ‘Let my people go to worship me in the wilderness.’ You have not listened. So, with this staff, I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will turn to blood; the fish will die, the river will stink, and Egypt won’t be able to drink water from it. And Yahweh says, ‘But this, you will know that I am Yahweh.” So, this was what God was speaking to the Pharaoh and his court. They had dismissed God who spoke to the Hebrew slaves, but, they will come to know by what will now unfold, that the voice they dismissed is Reality that unfolds all things around them, which again is the meaning of the name, “Yahweh”.    

And Exodus continues to present Moses and the Pharaoh as mirror opposites of each other. Moses is led step-by-step until he comes to fully believe the truth of what God spoke to him from the burning bush. After that confrontation with the Pharaoh, these steps become sure, and his path is set; from then on, Moses no longer voices doubts, and in each following step, God speaks to Moses, Moses does what God speaks, and reality then unfolds a particular disaster for Egypt, starting with the Nile River becoming like blood—the first of what we now call the Ten Plagues. But, each of these disasters is also leading the Pharaoh, step-by-step; each disaster confronts him with the truth of what God is speaking to him, from Moses, and what he must do. Yet, whereas Moses took that next step, the Pharaoh dug his heels in harder each time against taking it.

That is what it means when Exodus repeatedly says that the Pharaoh’s heart was hard. 

[ Pendulum ]

We shouldn’t change our positions about things too easily. Think of the sheer chaos our lives would be if an entire nation overturns what it’s doing at the drop of a hat; so say, a couple of people come down with an unknown illness, and we shut down everything— businesses, stores, social gatherings! And it is the ruler’s responsibility to keep order; so, Pharaohs must uphold the principle of Ma’at. But, what if it’s not just one or two things? What if an entire community falls ill, and then people in the neighboring counties start becoming sick? What if more and more things keep going wrong because of what we’re doing? And what if keeping order goes against the truth of what is now unfolding?

How we come to recognize the truth of something is often a step-by-step process; we usually don’t change everything we believe at the first sign that we’re wrong; instead, more and more things that unfold around us, speak to us with a louder and louder voice to recognize the truth. According to Exodus, that’s the voice of “Yahweh” that unfolds all things. And most of us do not hear this voice at first; but we do need to hear it at some point, and do so before it’s too late. And the Pharaoh… was too late. 

Moses and Aaron confront the Pharaoh by the Nile River, and the River turns like blood. But, Exodus reports that the wise men of his Court reproduced the same phenomenon, and so, he ignored what happened and his heart remained hard. That is, he saw no reason to change his mind. The disaster was real enough though, however it happened, and water from not just the main river, but the streams and canals, were contaminated, forcing the Egyptians dig new wells to get drinking water.   

Seven days later, Moses and Aaron confront the Pharaoh again. “This what Yahweh says: Let my people go to worship me. If you refuse, I will send a swarm of frogs from the Nile; the frogs will be everywhere in your country, even in your bedrooms.” Then, Moses paused, as if hearing something, then turned to Aaron and told him to stretch his staff over the waters of Egypt. Then, frogs began to come out of the water en masse. 

But, the wisemen of his court also reproduced this phenomenon for their Pharaoh; they too knew how to compel frogs to leave water and come up on land. The problem was: the sheer scale of what was happening was overwhelming; the frogs were everywhere, in the houses, in the palace, even in his own bedroom! And at some point, the Pharaoh seems to have thought to himself: What if there really was something to this “God” of the Hebrew slaves? So, the Pharaoh called for Moses and offered a deal: “Pray to this ‘Yahweh’ to take away these frogs, and I will let your people go and worship this ‘God.’”

Moses answered by upping the stakes. “What time do you want this to happen?” What he was saying was that when he prays to Yahweh, not only will Egypt be rid of all these frogs—except in rivers or ponds where they belong—but this will unfold in the specific time of the Pharaoh’s choosing. Pharaoh considered and replied, “Tomorrow.”

This exchange is very important. Remember what happened when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and Moses refused to go to Egypt, arguing that he is such a poor speaker and no one will listen to him. God then said, “What about your brother, Aaron? He is a great speaker, and he is on his way to meet you even now.” This was essentially God asking Moses, what will it take for you to take that first step, and start your journey to Egypt? And when the Pharaoh was asked about the timing of a miracle, he was being asked the same question: “What will it take for you to take that first step?” 

Now, the first step for the Pharaoh is not a wholesale liberation of the Hebrew slaves, so that they may go and form their own nation; what Moses and Aaron asked rather was a holiday, a sabbatical, for the Hebrew slaves. God, named “Yahweh,” was calling them to go on a journey into a desert wilderness, and the Pharaoh was to hear that call too, and grant that request. There was no further discussion about the details; how far will they be going, who will be going, what will they need, how long will they be gone? The first step for the Pharaoh was to just recognize the truth that mere slaves were really being called by some real “God,” and give them some time to follow that call.

But, the Pharaoh had refused, despite seeing the staff turning into a snake and devour the other snakes, despite the Nile River turning to blood. But, with frogs everywhere, he began to consider taking that first step, and so, he is asked: what would it take for you to recognize that it really is God speaking? To take the frogs away? Or more? Set your own condition—the time this will happen. And the Pharaoh replied, “Tomorrow.” 

Moses and Aaron then cried out to Yahweh, and the next day—the very time set by the Pharaoh—the frogs began to die, until all of the frogs that came on to land were gone. But, Exodus reports that once the frogs were gone, the Pharaoh hardened his heart, and once again refused to listen to them.

The exact wording here is very significant. In the previous cases, Exodus reports that the Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, or remained hardened, which describe his existing mindset; he would not let his mind change despite what was happening. But, here the wording implies the opposite; the Pharaoh actively hardened his heart. This time, what happened did change his mind, so that he found himself recognizing the truth—that this “Yahweh” that speaks to Moses is Reality, unfolding all these things, and so, he has to let his foreigner slaves go and meet this God. In fact, he himself gave his word; he even set specific conditions on what needs to unfold, for him to let his slaves go, and those condition were fulfilled. So, now, he has to break his own promise.

But, this promise was not just about some outward action, like granting his slaves a holiday; it involved an inward promise to himself—a recognition of truth, that is to say, a change of heart. And to break that kind of promise, requires breaking something inside you that enable you to change. He has to actively suppress any thought would confront him with the truth he nearly recognized, which is to say, he has to silence the voice of God speaking to him from within. 

Truth is our contact point with reality, and to harden your heart against it requires you to burn down that point of contact. The question is: how many points of contact can you burn down, until there’s no contact at all? 

[ Pendulum ]

As the plagues continue to unfold upon Egypt, the Pharaoh continues this path. Every time, Moses and Aaron declares what God, “Yahweh,” will unfold upon Egypt, and then reality unfolds that very disaster. 

Swarms of gnats come upon the people, and even his own wise men and magicians report to the Pharaoh that this really is something that God is doing—or the gods, the word here is “Elohim,” which can mean both. But, something had happened when the Pharaoh previously hardened his heart, and silenced that inner voice of truth; now, even the channels of truth that he previously recognized, the priests and magicians of his own royal court, cannot change his mind. His heart is hardened against them too. Then, flies swarm the land, covering the ground and filling the houses until the Pharaoh calls Moses to make the same promise; pray to “Yahweh,” and if the flies leave them, he will recognize the truth and let his slaves go meet with this God. But, once the flies leave, he breaks his promise, and again, the same words appears in Exodus: “The Pharaoh hardened his own heart.” So, another point of contact is set on fire. 

Then, livestock fell ill and died, but Moses said to him beforehand that “Yahweh” will unfold this disaster on a specific time and in a specifically way so that only the livestock of Egyptians will die, while none of those belonging to Hebrew slaves will be harmed. The Pharaoh then investigated what happened himself and found that this was true, yet he refused to change his mind. His heart was hardened, and that point of contact with reality finally collapses. Then, in the next plague, when Egyptians, including the priests and magicians, are struck with painful boils, he refused to listen to them. And it is here, that the Exodus account reports: “‘Yahweh’ hardened the Pharaoh’s heart.” 

[ Short Pendulum ]

Many of our most perplexing questions about the idea of God—or what this “God” does in the Bible—stem from us falling back into thinking that this “God” is just another entity in our reality, even if a very powerful one. Then, when God, say, hardens Pharaoh’s heart, this becomes a kind of mind-control by an alien being. But, that’s not the idea of God. God is Reality; reality that is continuing to unfold everything around us; reality all of us are engaged with at every moment. And reality includes how our own mind works. 

Well, it’s somewhat more complicated than that, since for Christianity, reality is God speaking; reality is like a speech, and unfolds like a story. And in Season Three, in the episodes 17, and 17.17, we explored how things like Nature and ourselves, take part in God speaking. The part that is God speaking is firstly the set of parameters or laws in which things are what they are and do what they do—and this is what our scientists would understand as the laws of nature. Now, we’ll get to Nature again in a different episode; here, we want to examine what this means for our minds, that is, the part that is us, and the part that is God speaking. Because there are specific parameters or laws by which our mind unfolds—which is the part that God is speaking—but our part is the things that we did or thought that determined how these parameters affect us.

Here’s a simple example: addiction. Once we’re fully addicted to certain substances, how our minds—or our brains—function in regard to them is fixed; we’re no longer in control, and this is set by biology, which is God speaking. However, in most cases, we are the ones who did things that got ourselves addicted. 

What happened with the Pharaoh is more complex, but follows a similar pattern. He fixed his heart into a certain way of thinking, and did so, by repetition. He would not let anything change his heart, no matter how significant; he would not let question enter his mind. Then, he went further, and broke his own standard of recognizing the truth, and then actively suppressed any thought that would’ve called him up on it, to the point that he shut out even his trusted advisors, and he did this repeatedly. And that does things to his psyche, setting up an unconscious and automatic system, which he will have less and less control over. That’s how our mind works. And that “how” is God speaking. 

Psychology today has observed a number of phenomena that point to this pattern, but here’s two of them. First, cognitive dissonance. We human beings cannot abide being aware of inner contradictions, and we’ll work without even thinking, to get rid of them. There was one experiment where the test subjects were made to do some really boring and pointless task. One group, however, was given some money as incentive. So, that group had no cognitive dissonance on why they did it; it was for the money. And later, those who received money honestly reported that the task was really pointless. But, the ones who weren’t given the money, tended to make up some special reasons why the task was actually meaningful; they were trying to erase the dissonance of why they were doing pointless things. And the important part of this is: they were not aware that they were doing this—it was unconscious. 

There’s another cognitive bias we’ve observed called the “Sunk Cost Fallacy.” This is when people spend more resources on something even when it becomes painfully clear that it’s better to give up on it, because they had sank in a lot of resources on it already. So, for a mundane example; you waited in a line that barely moved for an hour, and it’d be better for you to just walk away and try some other time, but you stay because you think: you already spent an hour, and you’re going to waste that hour if you go now! And then, it turns out you had to wait hours more—and the funny thing is, more hours you waited, less you’d be willing to walk away. And again, the important part of this is that this thinking tends to be unconscious—we’re not aware of it.  

Our minds—or our hearts—cannot pivot on a dime; they have momentum, connected with functions beyond our conscious control, so that how we think or feel is more like steering a boat on a current of water, than say, us darting about with our feet. And the Pharaoh had a very specific window of opportunity in which he could steer his mind, toward a direction where he can recognize what is unfolding, and engage with reality openly and truthfully. But, he steered against that, and did so too many times, for too long. And there finally came a point, where he began to lose conscious control over his own thoughts and decisions. 

[ Music ]

Cognitive dissonance kicks in; why did he go to such length to deny the truth of what these mere slaves were saying to him? Repeatedly? To the point he violated his own standards? And then shut out his trusted advisors? Even while terrible things happened supposedly because he did so? Well, it must be because he was right after all! He has to be, or why else would he have done all this? Sunk Cost Fallacy begins to bind him. If he’s wrong; if he should’ve let these foreigner slaves go worship this “Yahweh,” what about the staggering cost his country paid so far because of his previous decisions? The contaminated river, the frogs, the gnats and lice, the flies, the loss of livestock, the painful boils? For all of that to have meaning, these slaves have to be wrong; this “Yahweh” that spoke to them has to be some delusion; these disasters have to be some coincidence; or at least, this “God” has to lack the power to unfold anything else!    

But, still a small window remained for the Pharaoh. Moses and Aaron confronted him again; this time a terrible hailstorm was coming. But, Yahweh speaks to the Pharaoh and his court, “So, bring your people and livestock into shelter before I bring the storm, because those caught outside by this time, tomorrow, will die.” Some members of his own court listened, and their lives were saved. And as the sky continued to thunder, and massive hails fell, the Pharaoh and his officials called for Moses and said, “We were wrong. So, pray to your God, Yahweh, to stop this thunder and hail.”

Moses and Aaron did so, and the hail stopped. But again, for the last time, the Pharaoh hardened his own heart. And so he burned his last remaining contact of truth within him. From then on, the Pharaoh would be a puppet of his own making. Swarms of locusts came upon Egypt and he made the same promise and then broke it again—but, this time, without any conscious effort; the sun was blackened, and darkness fell upon Egypt, and this time, Pharaoh declared that if Moses ever speaks to him again, he would have him killed. But, in all of this, there was nothing in the Pharaoh that was genuine and free that still remained; he had burned all of these things down. 

These unconscious psychological process that would bind him, and then control him, is set by the parameters that God speaks regarding our minds. But, these processes were initiated by what the Pharaoh did. And I think this is why Exodus reports that at first, the Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and then he hardened his own heart, until there came a point when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

And that’s what it means: how God unfolded things to harden his heart.   

But, according to Exodus, before any of these things happened, God spoke to Moses that this is the course of events that will unfold. Of course, this is because God knows the future, but, there’s a far more important and frightening idea.  

Apostle Paul would later say that the Pharaoh was prepared by God for destruction. But, why? And one answer is: what if it was because he had already failed the test long before. Not only the Pharaoh, but all of Egypt? And the plagues that unfolded had been due for a long time?

So join me next episode to explore what the Plagues meant for Egypt, and the meaning of the final and the most terrible plague: the death of every firstborn, and the mercy that had still remained.

Thank you for listening, and please follow, subscribe, and share this series with others, and rate it on your Apple podcast and other platforms. You can also support this series at buymeacoffee.com—which you can go to by clicking on the line, “Support the show” in the episode description.

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[1] This is strongly implied in what God speaks to Moses in Exodus 7:1-2: “And Yahweh said to Moses, ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country.’”

[2] In Egyptian religion, their hearts would be weighed by the goddess on a scale, with feather on the other side. Those whose hearts are unburdened with evil, would be able to enter paradise. During the time of the Exodus, Ma’at as the goddess was depicted as the “daughter” of Ra, the supreme deity and the Sun-god in Egypt; in their myth, Ra had his daughter Maat bring order to chaos, so that the world could exist.

[3] Ramses, volume 2, The Temple of a Million Years, by Christian Jacq

[4] Heliopolis is the Latinized Greek name of the ancient Egyptian city, which means “the city of the Sun,” because it was the center of the worship of the Sun-god, Ra. The Egyptian name was, scholars believe, Iunu.