ContradictionsReading order 97Bible context 3 min read
Who hardened the Pharaoh's heart?
The narrative assigns Pharaoh's resistance both to God's deliberate intervention and to Pharaoh's own wrongdoing.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Foundational
- A central claim about origins, salvation, divine justice, or religious authority.
God deliberately causes resistance for which Pharaoh is condemned, creating a responsibility tension rather than exclusive competing agents.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
God hardens Pharaoh so he refuses release and pursues Israel
And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that 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.
Exodus 4:21
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Exodus 4
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 7:3
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Exodus 7