The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus 4-14 has been a debatable issue for a long time among biblical scholars and theologians. The challenge is to answer the question: did Pharaoh harden his heart, did God harden Pharaoh’s heart, or both? What is the relationship between the divine influence of God and the free will of Pharaoh’s heart?
This paper aims to examine the cause of Pharaoh’s hardening of heart and that of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart from the narrative development. Except that all of the “hardening” passages will be exegeted, the paper especially will apply the formative narrative approach to analyze the plot development during the ten plagues in order to understand the context of hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Thus the paper illustrates the role of hardening in relation to narrative development.
Moreover, the paper presents the logical connection between adjacent narratives in order to understand how Pharaoh harden heart and why God harden Pharaoh’s heart. Narrative analysis is thus the core of the paper. Finally, the paper concludes with new observations regarding to the use of the verbs of hardening in narrative development.