In the story of Exodus, which recounts the Israelites’ flight to freedom, readers are told that the heart of the oppressive Pharaoh was “hardened.” With respect to the first five of the ten plagues inflicted upon Egypt, either the Pharaoh’s heart became hard or the Pharaoh “hardened his own heart.” Then the dynamic changed. It was God who actively hardened the Pharaoh’s heart in four of the five succeeding plagues.
