Harden Heart: A new perspective

If the heart becomes hardened, the eye becomes dry. Only unconditional grace can transform a hardened heart into a grateful heart. As theologian Karl Barth puts it, 'As the beloved of God, we have no alternative but to love him in return.

Mark Galli

Exodus 4:21
“And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, seethat 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.”
Harden his heart... In Christ's parable of the sower and the seed there was no difference between the seed scattered in one kind of soil and that sown in the others, or yet in the manner in which it was sown. Everything depended upon the reception given the seed by each type of soil. In like manner, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was in no way an act of God, but rather a deliberate choice on his own part. By repeated warnings and displays of divine power God sent light designed to point out to Pharaoh the error of his ways, to soften and subdue his heart, and to lead him to cooperate with His will. But each successive manifestation of divine power left him more determined to do as he pleased. Refusing to be corrected, he despised and rejected the light, until he became insensitive to it, and the light was finally withdrawn. It was thus his own resistance to the light that hardened his heart. Even the heathen recognized that it was Pharaoh and the Egyptians who hardened their hearts, not God (1 Sam. 6.6).

It is a fascinating fact that the Hebrew word “chazaq” is translated as “hardened” in almost every account of God’s dealing with Pharaoh. But when Pharaoh “hardened” his own heart, the Hebrew word “kabed” is used. Why this difference? Actually the word “chazaq” has a literal meaning of “strengthen, courage.” For example, we read in 1 Samuel 30:6 that “David encouraged himself in the LORD,” but the word translated “encouraged” is “chazaq”—the same word which is translated as “hardened” in this passage. “Chazaq” is also translated as “encouraged” in the following verses: Deuteronomy 1:38; 2 Samuel 11:25; 2 Chronicles 35:2; Psalm 64:5; Isaiah 41:7; Deuteronomy 3:28; Judges 20:22; 2 Chronicles 31:4. When we take the true meaning of the word, we find that God actually encouraged Pharaoh’s heart to let Israel go. But when Pharaoh hardened his own heart, the Bible uses a different word—“kabed” which means “to make heavy, harden” (Exodus 8:15). But why did the “encouragement” of the Lord have the effect of hardening Pharaoh’s heart? We might just as well ask why the same encouraging, inspiring ministry of Jesus could produce a loving John and a traitorous Judas. One was softened, and the other was hardened. The same sun that softens the wax will harden the clay. Every man is exposed in some degree to the grace of Christ (John 1:9). The Lord is spoken of as a sun (Psalm 84:11) who lightens every man. Some reject the light and grow hard (Zechariah 7:12). Some accept and are softened. The end result depends on the response of each individual. 

God takes no pleasure in the suffering and death of the wicked, but rather desires that all men repent and be saved (Eze. 33.11; 1 Tim. 2.4; 2 Peter 3.9), and causes His sun to shine upon the evil and the good (Matt. 5.45). But as the sun affects different materials in different ways, according to their own nature¾ it melts wax and hardens clay, for instance¾ so the influence of the Spirit of God upon the hearts of men produces different effects according to the condition of the heart. The repentant sinner allows God's Spirit to l

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