Who Hardened Pharaoh's Heart?

Heard through 21st-century ears, the Plagues that beset ancient Egypt in the Torah's story of liberation from Pharaoh are ecological disasters. (Exod . 7:13 to 11:10).

The rivers become undrinkable, locusts consume the crops, a climate disaster of unprecedented hailstorms assails the country, mad cow disease descends upon the herds, a sandstorm of impenetrable darkness - a darkness you could actually feel, not only see - holds prisoner the land and its inhabitants.

All brought on by Pharaoh's stubbornness, his arrogance, his dependence and insistence on horse-chariot armies to subdue other peoples abroad and slave-driving overseers to subdue workers and ethnic minorities at home.

So go the major outlines of the story. But within these stark, boldly inscribed black-letter texts is hidden a more subtle chiaroscuro of the psychology of power. Why did Pharaoh act in such self-destructive ways? (Remember, "Pharaoh's army got drownded, deep in the Red Red Sea.")

When Moses first invokes Divine power --- showing Pharaoh that he can turn a stick into a snake -- Pharaoh is dismayed, but after his court experts perform the same trick, he "strengthens" his own heart and moves forward on his imperial course. When Moses raises the ante and has his stick swallow the sticks of the Egyptian, again Pharaoh is taken aback, but strengthens his own heart and refuses to let the Israelites make a festival for themselves.

And then what we call the "plagues" begin. Moses strikes the Nile, the life-blood of Egypt, with his stick --- and now no mere magic trick follows but a major eco-catastrophe: a "red tide" ironically drowns the Nile into what tastes and smells like blood. The source of Egypt's life becomes undrinkable, and all its fish die. This time Pharaoh is frightened --- but when his own magicians show they too can pollute the streams, he strengthens his heart against the poor - and God.

Then come the frogs, and Pharaoh surrenders for a moment; but when the frogs vanish, he toughens his heart. Again, when swarms of mosquitoes infest the land, he wavers but toughens his heart again. Mad cow disease strikes the herds, but Pharaoh toughens his heart.

Boils erupt on the bodies of Egyptians - and now for the first time in response to any of the plagues, YHWH -- the Breath of Life Itself - strengthens Pharaoh's heart.

When hailstorms far worse than had ever afflicted Egypt shatter crops, Pharaoh strengthens his own heart.

Then Moses warns Pharaoh of a plague of locusts that will eat away not only the present crops but their seed for the future, and the will of Pharaoh's courtiers finally breaks. "Do you not see that you are destroying Egypt?" they cry out to Pharaoh. But once again the Breath of Life toughens Pharaoh's heart, and he overrules even his own advisers, so bent is he on reasserting his own power.

There comes a darkness so thick it could be felt -- perhaps a three-day sandstorm - but once again, though Pharaoh trembles, God hardens Pharaoh's heart. Only the deaths of all of Egypt's firstborns push him over the edge into ordering the Israelites to leave -- notice that he orders them, rater than permits them -- and even then, when he awakens in the morning to see his land devastated and his economy torn to shreds, he cannot bear his humiliation, his powerlessness. He orders his army to reenslave the departing Israelites. He and the Army end up drowned in the Sea of Reeds.

We might well ask, Why does God intervene to harden, toughen, stiffen Pharaoh's heart? At those late moments in the story, what has happened to "free will"?

We might similarly ask, "What has happened to the free will of a heroin addict?" The first shooting-up, the fifth, even the tenth, may be acts of free will. But at some point, Reality (call It "God" if you like) takes over. The body has so deeply responded to these acts of free will that it loses its freedom.

And this is what happens to Pharaoh. He chooses hard-heartedness so often that he loses his ability to choose. He -- the most powerful man in the world --- has lost his freedom in order to deny freedom to those he has enslaved. The most powerful army, the most brutal police cannot save him: indeed, they destroy him.

There is a teaching, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Torah teaches, "Absolute power addicts absolutely -- and self-destructs absolutely." And this is a warning to all leaders and peoples, not a mere historical chronicle but an archetypal tale of what happens when top-down, unchecked power becomes not an instrument for change in the service of life but an addiction. Who today are the institutional pharaohs that are bringing plagues - ecological disasters -- upon the earth, and serfdom - economic disasters - on the people?

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*Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org and author of Godwrestling - Round 2, Down-to-Earth Judaism, and many other books of Jewish thought and practice. This essay is appearing in the Jerusalem Report's "The People and the Book" series. For other commentaries by Rabbi Waskow on the weekly Torah portions, click to http://www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy_menu/1/127/7/56 and look on the left-hand column for the names of each of the Five Books. In response to this story of Pharoh and the Plagues, to the 40th anniversary of the original Freedom Seder, and to the present world-wide ecological crisis, The Shalom Center is preparing a Freedom Seder for the Earth.