Commentaria in Exodum
But Calvin urges that to harden is no fault in God, because this is God’s just judgment; but this pretext is frivolous and empty: for if hardness is a fault, to whatever end, by whatever judgment you impel to it, you commit a fault: for what is evil in itself and a fault is allowed for no end: and therefore this is not just, but is the impious judgment of Calvin, and it is the same as to say openly: God is the author of sin, but to this end, that He may exercise His judgment and the vengeance of preceding sins.
Fourthly, not Pharao only, but Scripture also ascribes to him the fault and the hardening, when it narrates that, already free and exempt from the plague, he returned of his own accord to his disposition, Exod. 8:15: “And Pharao seeing that rest was given, hardened his own heart”; and chap. 9:34: “And Pharao seeing that the rain was ceased, increased his sin, and his heart was made heavy,” that is, as it is in the Hebrew, yakbed libbo, that is, he made heavy his own heart. The same is plain chap. 7, last verse, in the Hebrew: whence as often as our Interpreter in Exodus renders it, “was hardened,” understand, the heart, that is the will, of Pharao made itself heavy: so you may render the Hebrew everywhere. Pharao himself therefore properly and positively hardened himself; but God permissively and indirectly, as I shall say in Question 5. So all the Fathers and Catholic interpreters commonly hold and explain.
Calvin objects, first: There is a great difference between doing and suffering, between doing and permitting; to harden is to do; therefore it is not only to permit to be hardened, but to effect the hardness itself.
I answer, in Hebrew and Latin phrase permission, as well as occasion, is often called action; whence that saying: Soft indulgence of parents makes their sons slothful; and so we commonly speak. Again, “to do” is among the Hebrews most wide and is taken most amply, as of Joseph, Gen. 41:13, in the Hebrew, the butler says: Joseph restored me (namely by his prophecy, that is, foretold that I should be restored) to my office; and him, the baker namely, he hanged, that is, foretold that he should be hanged. So here chap. 5, verse 22, Moses says to the Lord: “Why hast thou afflicted thy people?” that is, why hast Thou been the occasion of their affliction by sending me to Pharao, and thereby more exasperating him against the Hebrews? With stronger reason, therefore, God, enclosing all things by His providence, defining for all the acts of men the manner, time, degree and limit beyond which they do not go, when He suffers the wicked to act wickedly and to harden themselves, and assists them by His concurrence that they may do what they please, is said to do it.
Calvin presses: Permission, like other negations and privations, is not a judgment, not vengeance, not a punishment; for these are positively inflicted by a judge. But hardening is a judgment, vengeance and punishment of preceding sins: therefore it is inflicted by God not only permissively but positively.
I answer that the major is false: for although the sentence of a judge must be positive, the punishment inflicted by it is often privative, as when a judge punishes someone by privation of goods, disqualification from offices and dignities, etc. So the Julian law punishes adulteresses, in that it permits them to be killed with impunity by their parents. In like manner the decree of permitting this or that man to be hardened is positive in God, and a positive action; yet the permission itself of the hardening is not a positive action, and is nevertheless an immense punishment; for who does not see that it is a great punishment of sinners when God permits them to do with impunity whatever they please, and to rush into the depth of evils and of hell? Add that in this hardening there is not only permission but also other positive actions of God, as I shall say in Quest. 3.
He objects secondly: Not once but often is it said here that God hardened Pharao, but not that Pharao hardened himself: but it does not seem probable that Scripture so often uses improper speech.
I answer: More often it is said here that Pharao hardened himself, as is plain from what has been said, more rarely that God hardened him, namely only in the 6th, 8th and 9th plagues, and when he pursued the Hebrews who had gone out of Egypt, and this He here foretold to Moses, namely to give him courage, as one who was to experience so great obstinacy of the king, and so that Moses might not be dismayed, thinking that Pharao is hardened not without the providence and foretelling of God, and might know that the king’s heart is in the hand of God, and is at length to be softened by Him to let the Hebrews go, as He also did after the last plague of the firstborn.
He objects thirdly: God, chap. 10, verse 1, says that He hardened Pharao that He might show in him His signs, plagues and power: therefore by His signs and scourges He did not harden Pharao, but rather hardened him to this end, that He might have occasion of scourging him, and of showing in him His justice and power.
I answer: God showed His power in Pharao, not by hardening him, but by scourging and punishing him when hardened, of which more in their places: for otherwise, if Pharao did not freely harden himself, but God hardened him, what contest was there between Pharao and God? for so God did all, Pharao nothing. In a hardened stone, I ask, what power does God show; or what contest can there be with a stone?
Thou wilt ask secondly, if not directly and positively, in what ways then is God said to have hardened Pharao?
I answer first, permissively, where note: God permits sins otherwise and far more powerfully than a man, e.g. a prince, permits the same: for God holds the wills of all men in His hand, so that He can bend them in any direction; but the will of man, without God’s nod, can go out into no work at all, whether good or evil, unless God slacken to it the reins of His permission, nay concur positively with it and co-operate, for the production of this act and work. As therefore he who holds a lion bound with a rope, if he loosen and let it go, and the freed lion kill someone, is said, as the holder of the lion, to have killed that man, not by himself but by the lion he let go: so God, suffering the will to sin and to harden itself in sins, is said Himself to harden it, especially because by His concurrence He concurs in this act of hardening.
Secondly, Pineda on Job chap. 8, verse 20, num. 3, explains thus: I will harden, and, as it is in the Hebrew, I will make heavy, or strengthen, the heart of Pharao, that is, I will make the heart of Pharao hard, strong, able to resist, and not timid or soft: for this natural constancy and spiritedness, by which it came about that Pharao was tenacious of his purpose and did not easily change it, was from God the author of nature, but Pharao himself abused it as arms, to resist his Maker. This exposition is true, but not full; for this hardness of Pharao was not only a certain natural constancy, but moreover the pertinacity, wilfulness and obstinacy of a proud mind; of which vices God was not the author, but either Pharao himself, or the concupiscence innate in him and the disposition of corrupt nature.
Thirdly, God hardened Pharao by withdrawing from him His grace, which would have softened his heart, as the sun hardens clay, not by positively effecting hardness, but by drawing off the moisture which tempered and softened the clay; so also God, says St. Augustine, “hardens the heart by not applying grace, not by impelling to malice”; understand by “grace” not all grace, but copious, powerful and efficacious grace; for God leaves to the hardened some grace, by which from time to time He moves and knocks at them: otherwise they would be of altogether desperate salvation, and as it were damned; but this grace is rare, slight and moderate.
Fourthly, by giving him wealth, courage, empire, glory, by which he confirmed himself in his tyranny.
Fifthly and most aptly, God is said to have hardened Pharao, because when He saw him hard and obstinate, He did certain things about him, from which he took occasion of hardening himself the more. Concerning which note: Pharao, desirous of dominion, had plainly fixed his mind on retaining the Hebrews, that he might be able to rule them, and apply so notable and industrious a nation to the public works of the kingdom; for he drew great profit from them. Hence it came about that, when God wished to draw them away and lead them out from him, he the more desired to detain them, and the more confirmed his mind in this will, ambition and tyranny.
God therefore hardened Pharao, first, by His plagues and scourges, and that by sending them not all at once and excessively, but little by little, moderately and at intervals; so that He gave him rest by taking away the scourge for a time, whereby it came about that these scourges were less than his tyranny and hardness, and could neither soften nor break his mind, thus inflamed and confirmed by the lust of ruling over the Hebrews, but rather inflamed and confirmed him the more in it: for his heart was hard like adamant, which the more it is beaten the more it resists; so also he hardens by being beaten; for a hard and depraved affection turns all things into its own hardness and depravity; and although during the scourge he seemed from time to time to be softened (as, by alternating affections of the mind, hard men are from time to time softened for a while), yet when it ceased, he soon returned to his disposition and hardness. Whence Exodus 8:15 it is said: “And Pharao seeing that rest was given, hardened his own heart.” So St. Augustine here, Quest. 36, and Anastasius of Nicaea, Quest. 29. Therefore as wicked and obstinate boys become harder by blows, so Pharao by the blows of God. Whence as a master by flogging an obstinate boy is said to harden him by his flogging and make him more obstinate, so God by His plagues is said to have hardened and made harder the heart of Pharao, not by infusing hardness into him, but by presenting to him scourges, by which he hardened himself the more, and resisted God.