Number 1.3       
September 2007      

 

Pharaoh’s Hardened Heart: Vengeance and Redemption in the Story of Exodus

By Daniel Harris

Certainly one of the most enduring paradoxes of scriptural narratives is the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between the free-will of humanity and the sanctity of divine will. In the stories of Job and Abraham, divine will is born out in the hearts of people, so much so that we must ask, what is the point? If, in fact, free-will can be alleviated by the divine, can free-will even exist at all? Is it a concept predicated on universality?

Perhaps the most interesting question is why and how.  If God can relieve man of his free-will, what are the conditions of such degradation? That is to say, what willful acts incur the loss of free-will as divine punishment? It is a question that engenders questions of sin and redemption. After all, the concept at the heart of the covenant between God and the Israelites is the epistemological inscription of sin and redemption, both notions requiring some form of choice.

There is perhaps nowhere in the scriptures that characterizes these questions more than the story of the Israelite’s Exodus from Egypt.  For example, in the Exodus story we see God hardening Pharaoh’s heart over and over again, such that he will not permit the Israelites to leave Egypt, at least not on their own terms. As a result, God unleashes upon Egypt a series of terrible plagues. This story then begs the question, what is the purpose of God hardening the Pharaoh’s heart and the subsequent plagues? Is it retribution for the persecution of God’s chosen people? If not, what then?

Taken to abstraction, this question poses a necessary threat to the notion of covenantal ethics. If God takes free-will from Pharaoh, then He takes from him the capacity for repentance, or, for that matter, sin, and, therefore, undermines the covenantal relationship. This problem profoundly needs fixing, so to speak. Obviously, I am not the first person to wrestle with it. Commentators of scripture have dealt with this problem for centuries and have arrived at a series of conclusions about the form and function of God’s actions.

One approach to the problem might be to make an ontological distinction between the Israelites and the Egyptians. That is to say, we might claim that the covenant does not apply to the Egyptians because they are not God’s chosen people. However, this is a profoundly dangerous way of thinking. After all, to claim that a people are not worthy of a covenantal relationship is to undermine not only their possession of free-will, but indeed their capacity for free-will. It has a dehumanizing effect that might, if we extrapolate this ontological distinction to the modern world, rationalize any number of atrocities. Luckily for us, we can recognize the covenantal ethics with the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart without making such an ontological distinction.

In order to reconcile the problem of Pharaoh’s hardened heart with the seeming undermining of the covenantal ethics, I will consider the commentaries of four prominent thinkers on the subject. First, I will look at the exegesis of Rashi, who sees Pharaoh as an inadequate covenantal partner, not capable of repentance for his actions. Second, I will consider Nahmanides, who considers the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart not as a contradiction to the covenantal ethics, but rather a function of the covenantal relationship. Third, I will consider Maimonides, who sees free-will as a function of the covenantal relationship and, therefore, a blessing that can be withdrawn as a result of sin. That is to say, Pharaoh was evil of his own free-will and consequently deserved the punishment that he received. Finally, I will consider the work of Origen who in some sense agrees with Maimonides but who also, in Christian fashion, centers his exposition much more on the nature of free-will than on assuming free-will as a starting point.

R. Shlomo ben Isaac, known as Rashi, takes a traditional exegetic approach to the problem by noting in the Exodus a basic contradiction. That is, in Exodus 7:3, God says to Moses, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.” However, until the sixth plague, the scriptures say that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart.  While at first it seems as though God treats Pharoah harshly here, Pharaoh can stop the plagues at any moment simply by “letting the people go.” Then, however, Pharaoh’s recalcitrance makes him an inadequate covenantal partner.  As a result, Pharaoh loses the capacity to repent through his own free-will, a function of the covenant that Pharaoh implicitly rejects.

Rashi seems to be hinting at a philosophical answer to the questions raised by the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, but, being a pure exegete, he really does not elaborate. In my analysis, however, Rashi suggests a solution to the philosophical problem of the Exodus narrative. That is, the free-will which humans enjoy is not an a priori property of humanity. Free-will, instead, is a function of the covenantal relationship with God. As such, we are all born with the capacity to act freely, but once we expressly reject the covenantal relationship by denying the divine authority of God, our capacity for free-will is also rejected. After all, it can be argued that the function of free-will is to create the capacity for repentance, but we cannot repent if we do not recognize the nature of our sin. This notion, suggested by the exegesis of Rashi, ties into the more philosophical approach of Nahmanides who, as Shaul Magid points out, “draws this episode into the covenantal ethics and interprets God’s actions as just in light of Pharaoh’s sinful behavior.”[1]

Nahmanides, in his exegetic/philosophical approach to the Exodus narrative, tends to distance himself from the questions of free-will that we are attempting, in this paper, to reconcile with God’s actions. Nahmanides states, in his commentary on Exodus 7:3: “when the plagues intensified and [Pharoah] began to suffer from them, his heart began to suffer from them and he was wont to free them [the Israelites] because of the plagues and not because of the divine will.” Here, Nahmonides explores an idea that I see as the central function of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. Our discomfort with God’s seemingly unjust action is that, from a first reading, Pharaoh appears ready to repent after the fifth plague, at which point God hardens his heart against such a repentance. However, upon closer inspection, Pharaoh is still not ready to repent, only to relent to pressure.

Nahmanides’s approach to the problem then brings us to an important subtext of the Exodus narrative. When Moses originally approached Pharaoh about releasing the Israelites from captivity, it was highly unlikely that Pharaoh would agree. After all, Pharaoh had an empire to run and it was an empire whose economy was predicated on slave labor. In that context, his recalcitrance may be understood in an essentially pragmatic light. What was missing from his worldview, however, was the recognition of God’s divine authority. Thus, when he relented to Moses’ demands after the fifth plague, it was not out of a genuine repentance and understanding of God’s will, but rather the same pragmatic concern.  It is more difficult for Pharoah to deal with the ravages of the plagues than it would have been to let the Israelites go on their way. In this construct, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart because Pharaoh still missed the point. That is, he still did not regard God as the singular divine authority.

Maimonides’ approach to scriptural commentary is more philosophical rather than exegetic. That is, he aims to reconcile the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart with an abstract philosophical or legal ethic rather than making sense of a single verse or the narrative as a whole. As such, Maimonides’s central claim is that free-will can be taken from those whose sins are grave enough. As he writes in his Laws of Teshuva:“It is possible that a person may commit a grave transgression, such that the True Judge rules that punishment for this sinner…is that teshuva will be withheld from him.”[2]  So, Maimonides’s position is fairly straightforward: our free-will is ordained by our covenantal relationship with God and, if our sins are grave enough, as the Pharaoh’s apparently were, then free-will can be stripped from us.

Rashi, Maimonides, and Nahmanides each take different approaches to understanding the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, but they all still have a common purpose. That is, they attempt to understand the means and motives of God’s actions, in addition to formulating a reasonable basis for the divine will. Interestingly enough, they also have Judaism in common. That is, they express a tradition in Jewish theology to alleviate, through exegetical or philosophical expositions, the uneasiness many might feel when reading scriptural narratives. This, however, is a notion that tends to be lost on many Christian theologians who often preface their theological expositions by saying that it is not for human minds to know the nature of God’s actions. This is plainly evident in the Christian theologian Origen’s treatment of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.

In principle, Origen tends to mirror Maimonides’s thoughts on the subject. That is, he asserts that sins exist grave enough for God to strip man of his free-will and subsequently the capacity for repentance. However, it is important in order to differentiate Jewish from Christian theology to note that the entire precept of free-will is a bit dubious in Christian theology. As such, Origen’s writing on the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is not so much about God’s action in this particular narrative, but rather the form and function of free-will in Christian theology as a whole. Origen’s exposition is largely based on the notion that the same merciful act of God can have different effects on different people, “hardening one and softening the other.”[3]  Paul, in Hebrews 6:7-8 for example, says that “for land, which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, its end is to be burned.” In this analogy, the land that is plowed and well-tended yields fruits and vegetation that are helpful and good. However, the untended, poorly maintained land yields thorns and thistles. As such, God’s action—bringing the rain—and the quality of the land are the same. So, it is the action of the landowner, i.e. the man, which determines whether God’s action will be a blessing or a curse.  In this context, we may interpret God’s decree that “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart” in an altogether different light. That is to say, we may understand it as a colloquialism.

Consider, for example, an overly friendly and accommodating boss who says to a lazy employee, “I spoil you.” In this context we understand that the boss does not spoil his employee by taking his free-will from him. Rather, he is saying that, even though the employee is lazy and not doing his job, the boss has been too easy on him. This analogy works quite nicely with the Exodus narrative, noting that the first three plagues God inflicts upon Egypt are, in fact, replicated by the Pharaoh’s own magicians. As such, we may be able to soften God’s meaning when he says, before Moses approaches Pharaoh, that he “will harden Pharaoh’s heart” in Exodus 4:21 and Exodus 7:3. This interpretation, however, raises some questions of its own. In particular, why would God bother with such minor plagues, if he knew that they would not sway the Pharaoh towards recognition of divine authority?

We might explore such considerations when we juxtapose this interpretation with Romans 9:17: “I have raised you [Pharaoh] up for the very purpose of showing my power in you” If we take the two together, we come to an interesting interpretation of the Exodus narrative: God’s motive, or at least one of his motives, was to demonstrate the nature of divine prophecy. Events that we might consider miraculous can only be so if they are foretold by some manner of divine revelation. Conversely, the truth of what one sees as divine revelation can only be ascertained by the manifestation of the predictive revelation. Is it then possible that the first three plagues were to secure Moses and the rest of the Israelites in the truth of Moses’ revelation? A bit of a stretch perhaps, but nonetheless possible. Now we come to the unifying idea of this paper.

The uneasiness that people feel as a result of the Exodus narrative can be summed up in our seeing God’s actions as fundamentally unjust. In Genesis 12:3, God promises to Abraham, “Him who curses you I will curse.”  And likewise, God promises to deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. However, we can scarcely argue with the assertion that vengeance is not justice and also that to say that God’s will shall come to pass is tautological.  The uneasiness we feel then seems to be engendered by the notion that the ten plagues and all the suffering that they caused was unnecessary. After all, if God is all powerful, then with the mere proverbial snap of his fingers, the Israelites would find themselves miraculously transported from Egypt to the Promised Land. Superficially then, we might see God’s unleashing of the mighty plagues as a form of retribution, a grand punishment upon the Pharaoh who callously persecuted God’s chosen people. But, as I have said, vengeance is not justice and vengeance on such a grand scale certainly seems particularly unjust. What then is the point?

The commentaries I discussed in this paper point to common conclusion. Namely, God’s actions were not a function of some malicious retributive will, but rather a demonstration of divine authority with a fundamentally redemptive purpose. God laid the plagues upon Egypt so that the Pharaoh, and by extension the Egyptians, might see the power of God’s divine will and enter into the covenant of their own volition. In this context, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was not so that God would continue to lay curses upon Egypt but rather so that “the Egyptians shall know that [he is] the LORD.” (Exodus 14:4). The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart would be necessary for the completion of that goal. As I said previously, even when Pharaoh’s heart softens a bit and he relents to Moses’ demands, he still misses the point. He does not understand and does not wish to enter into a covenantal relationship with God. Even before Pharaoh’s heart was hardened against letting Moses and his people leave on their own terms, his heart was already hardened to the nature of God’s divine authority.

Using this perspective, we can go back through the Exodus narrative and begin to realize that God’s actions are plainly stated in the text, that God’s most sincere wish was that the people of Egypt would accept the covenantal relationship and follow the Israelites into the Promised Land. We see, for instance, in Exodus 12:49 that God decrees, “There shall be one law for the native and stranger who sojourn among you.”  We see in this verse a clear statement of purpose. God wished to demonstrate his power in the land of Egypt so that the people of Egypt would have accepted his authority and entered into the covenantal relationship. Once they accept, then they can, in effect, become one of God’s chosen people. So, it is the divine wish that not only the Israelites be freed from Egypt, but also that, paradoxically, that the Egyptians be freed from Egypt, for their enslavement at the hands of Pharaoh was much different. It was, in essence, an enslavement of the soul, a bondage that prevented them from knowing God as the Israelites did.

I will conclude now with an observation that may help to bring the Exodus story into perspective. Judaism, and subsequently Islam and Christianity, are unique in that they expose the moral universe in which we live through narrative form rather than through philosophical or pseudo-scientific doctrines. Perhaps it is the all-encompassing point of all the exegesis and interpretation that the function of God’s actions in the Exodus was to, paradoxically, create the narrative. As I have written, to say that the will of God shall come to pass is tautological; however, that we humans, in our capacity to act freely, will fulfill our part in bringing about the divine will is not. So, in the end, perhaps it is the point that the story might be written and that future generations might read that story and, through it, understand the challenge of fulfilling man’s covenant with God. As such, we may see in Moses the essence of ourselves.  Moses is the prototypical anti-hero. God, however, promises Moses that He will stand by him.  It was faith that sustained Moses and gave him the courage to stand up to what was then the most powerful king on earth. When we read the story of the Exodus and find a bit of ourselves in Moses, we understand that it is faith in the reciprocation of the covenantal devotion by God that may free us from whatever bondage in which we might find ourselves.


ENDNOTES

[1] Shaul Magid, "Pharaoh's Hardened Heart: Cruel and Unusual Punishment and Covenantal Ethic," Journal of Scriptural Reasoning Vol.2, No.2 (September 2002); http://jsr.lib.virginia.edu/issues/volume2/number2/ssr02-02-e01.html

[2] Moses Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, laws of Repetence: 2:1

[3] Origen, First Things, bk. 3. chap 1.


© 2007, Society for Scriptural Reasoning