“And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.”
God says to Moses: when you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. The theological weight of Pharaoh's hardened heart has generated more discussion than almost any other passage in Exodus. Paul engages it directly in Romans 9:17–18, arguing that God's hardening of Pharaoh serves the purpose of demonstrating His power before all the earth. The hardening is judicial: Pharaoh has already repeatedly chosen resistance, and God confirms him in the direction he has chosen, allowing that direction to reach its full expression. This is the same process described in Romans 1:24–28, where God gives people over to what they have chosen. The hard heart that refuses to release God's people will become the occasion for the most dramatic display of divine power in the Old Testament.
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