Harden Not Your Heart
One
Why does God harden Pharaoh’s heart?
Following the final plague, Pharaoh relents and commands Moses to take the Israelites and leave. The Egyptians, fearing further destruction, urge them to go and even give them silver, gold, and clothing. The Israelites depart from Rameses, numbering about six hundred thousand men, plus women, and children, probably more than one million people plus livestock.
Again, Pharoah hardened his heart and pursued Israel to the Red Sea, where God parted the waters, allowing Israel to cross. But Pharaoh in his stubbornness drove his army after them. As the Egyptians chased them into the parted sea, the waters returned, drowning Pharaoh’s entire army. The Israelites witnessed their enemies dead on the shore, recognizing Yahweh’s deliverance.
In the book of Exodus, the character of Pharaoh is a fascinating psychological study. He’s almost unbelievably obstinate. Of course, at the beginning, before he knows just who Moses is or just who Moses’ God is, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t take them very seriously. But then major things start happening, which do serious damage to the Egyptians, like the Nile turning to blood, or their livestock and crops getting wiped out, or the sun completely darkening for three days.
You would think that when that stuff starts happening, Pharoah would really do a 180 and start getting with the program. But no, even if he sometimes wavers, he always goes back to his hardline, “I will not let the Israelites go.”
After each of the plagues there is a common refrain, “Yet Pharaoh's heart was stubborn and, as Yahweh had foretold, he would not listen to Moses and Aaron.” But maybe what’s most interesting is that God foretold that this would happen. He foretold to Moses that Pharaoh would continually refuse to budge. In fact, God says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.”
What does that mean? Does it mean that God is mind-controlling Pharaoh? That God is making Pharaoh do the wrong thing, and then punishing him for what he couldn’t help doing in the first place? Not at all. When God says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart,” it’s telling us something about Pharaoh’s character. And maybe something about our own character too.
Two
Wax and Clay
God is always Himself, always the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He’s always good and generous to everybody. But, sometimes the same thing, acting the same way, can have different effects on different things.
The classic example is the sun. The sun is always the same, always itself, always sending heat down to earth. But it will affect different kinds of things differently. For instance, the same sun will melt wax and harden clay. Because wax and clay are differently disposed.
So too, the same God, acting benevolently towards everyone, will soften some hearts into repentance and love, and harden other hearts into rebellion and bitterness. It all depends on how our hearts are disposed.
So what is the right way to dispose your heart to God’s activity? How can we make sure that our hearts won’t be hardened, like Pharaoh’s?
Three
Are you willing to criticize yourself?
At the end of the day, there’s probably only one way to dispose your heart rightly to God. And it’s this: Are you willing to look at yourself honestly, and acknowledge the sin and failure inside you? And are you willing to apologize for it, and try to do better?
Remember, God didn’t just harden Pharaoh’s heart by His displays of power. Jesus also hardened the hearts of the Pharisees by His displays of love and mercy. Because they weren’t willing to admit that they were sinners. That they had deep problems. That they caused a lot of unnecessary suffering to other people. They weren’t willing to admit that they were sick, so the arrival of the Physician just hardened their hearts.
If you are willing to self-examine, and to apologize, and to try to do better, then you will be able to respond rightly, with a holy flexibility, to God’s work in your life. If not, you don’t have a hope.
There’s a terrible sentence in the Book of Sirach: it says, “For one sort of man there is no remedy: the proud. The evil took too deep a root before they even knew it.” (Sirach 3:30).
God knew that Pharaoh was that kind of man. And that no matter what He did, Pharaoh would not change.
Four
Will reality and other people be able to change you?
We always recognize prideful obstinacy in others. We recognize that they “never look at themselves,” that they are “unwilling to change,” that for them “it’s always somebody else’s fault.” And we call them narcissists, and shake our heads.
But how ironic would it be (and yet how likely it actually is) if we criticize other people for being unreflective narcissists, and then it turns out that that’s exactly what we are?
So here are a couple of tests, drawn from the story of Pharaoh: When people are angry at you, do you ever say, “You know what, they’re right. I wouldn’t like to have to deal with me either”? And then do you say to the person who’s upset with you, “I realize I have this vice, and it makes things hard for you. I’m sorry. I’ll try to work on it”? And when you have an idea, or a project, and people are telling you they don’t think it’s a good idea and you go ahead with it, and it fails anyway, do you say, “I’m sorry, you were right. I was wrong. We won’t try that again”? When something unpleasant happens in your life, do you constantly complain about it, and say, “Why do these things happen to me?” Or do you remember that you, with all your sins, deserve much worse, and use the occasion of suffering to grow in humility?
And, maybe most importantly, when you’ve gone against the Church’s teaching, maybe you’ve divorced and remarried, or gotten yourself sterilized, or have a habitual pornography problem, and it hasn’t made you happy (because it never does), do you say, “I’m sorry, I’ll try to reform and restructure my life and do penance for that sin.” Or do you just shrug it off and change nothing?
The point is, it’s easy to point the finger at Pharaoh and other narcissists who are totally incapable of self-criticism and self-reform. But if the people in your life and the events in your life don’t prompt you to self-criticism and self-reform then you have a hardened heart too, and everything God is trying to do for you is just making your heart harder.
Five
A Hardened Heart will Lose You Everything
Pharoah’s hardened heart cost him everything. He didn’t just cripple his own nation, He also lost his own son. And then, in that supreme insanity of his own unreflectiveness, he sent his whole army into a sea that was, right before his eyes, split apart by a staggering power that was clearly on the side of the Israelites. But he was the sort of person where the plain facts or reality just prompted greater and greater obstinacy. And if we allow ourselves to become that sort of person, we will also lose everything. We’ll lose the love of our families. We’ll lose the respect of our friends. And when it’s all over, we’ll lose everlasting life.
So this Lent, ask yourself: what have the circumstances of my life shown me that I need to change? What is God doing in my life, and how can my heart be responsive to what He’s showing me, instead of hardened?
Suggested Resolutions:
Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.
Using point four as a reference, do a daily examination of conscience to try and find the moments in which your have hardened your heart or ignored your own need for change.
As a practice of humility, find someone you need to apologize to this week for being too hard of heart.