The moral difficulty of this
subject is the ascription in Old Testament of the hardening of men’s hearts to
God . . . First of all, the result is twice foretold. The Lord say, I will
harden his heart (Exod 4:7). In the case of the first five plagues and the
seventh . . . the phrase is Pharaoh hardened his heart or his heart
was hardened . . . In the sixth, eighth, and ninth . . . the phrase is the
Lord hardened his heart . . . Thus, the result is not ascribed to God only;
both the divine and the human agencies are recognized. Whatever God had to do
with the result, Pharaoh’s freedom of action was not interfered with . . . At
each stage Pharaoh might have yielded instead of refusing . . . It shows us,
that divine appeals and commands never leave men as they find them. If not
yielded to, they increase insensibility, benumb and gradually deaden moral
feeling. This effect is contrary to the divine purpose, and is entirely man’s
fault; but it is natural and inevitable. The more powerful the appeals, the more
rapid the hardening process, until God’s Spirit withdraws, and leaves man to
his own ways (Rom 1:28). Looked at from the human side, Pharaoh, like every
smaller transgressor, is seen acting with perfect freedom, consciously pitting
his own will against God’s, despising louder and louder warnings of ruin,
self-punished and self-destroyed. Looked at from the divine side, God is seen
commanding, forewarning, repeating rejected opportunities, doing everything to
ensure submission and safety . . . It is evident that we have here again the
old problem of reconciling the divine foreknowledge and government with human
freedom and responsibility. Each element is attested by its own evidence. Both
are necessary to a complete explanation. The two regions meet at some point
invisible to human eye and undefinable in human speech and thought. (J.S. Banks,
“Hardening,” A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings, 4 vols. [Edinburgh:
T & T Clark, 1899], 2:302-3 in Timothy A. Stratton, Human Freedom,
Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism: A Biblical, Historical, Theological, and
Philosophical Analysis [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2020], 32)