1.(4:18-23) Further instructions from God to Moses.
2.(4:24-26)A peculiar incident during the journey to Egypt: Zipporah, Moses’ wife, circumcises their son to ward off danger to Moses.
3. (4:27-31) God sends Aaron to meet Moses, and together they convince the people that God has sent them.
4. (5:1-6:1) Moses and Aaron’s first confrontation with Pharaoh fails. Pharaoh retaliates by oppressing the Israelites even more harshly. The Israelites blame Moses and Aaron for making their plight worse. Moses complains to God, who reassures him, You will soon see what I will do to Pharaoh.
Pharaoh’s Heart Condition
And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go to return to Egypt, see: All the portents that I have put in your hand, you are to do before Pharaoh. But I will make his heart strong-willed, so that he will not send the people free. Exodus 4:21 (Fox, The Five Books of Moses)
This does not mean God prevented Pharaoh from agreeing to let the Israelites go. It means that God strengthened Pharaoh enough so that he would not die of fear. Hizkuni (13th century France)
Nowhere in the Bible is the fact of human freedom questioned, apart from the episode where God hardens Pharaoh’s heart . . . But the Pharaoh episode is precisely the exception that proves the rule, for the biblical account assumes that under all normal conditions Pharaoh too would be free to release the Israelites. This is not a normal situation because God has a broader purpose to accomplish. That’s why God has to intervene directly to limit Pharaoh’s freedom. It takes a specific divine intervention to rob Pharaoh of his freedom—so much is freedom a natural part of the order of creation. Rabbi Neil Gillman
For I have hardened his heart (Ex. 10:1) . . . Rabbi Yochanan said: “Does this not provide heretics with ground for arguing that he had no means of repenting, since it says, ‘For I have hardened his heart?’” To which Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish replied: “Let the mouths of the heretics be stopped up . . . When God warns a man once, twice, and even a third time and he still does not repent, then does God close his heart against repentance so He should exact vengeance from him for his sins.” Thus it was for wicked Pharaoh. Midrash Exodus Rabbah 13:3 (10th century)
And I will harden (Ex. 7:3) . . . Since he dealt wickedly and offered resistance against Me, and it is manifest before Me that there is no delight among the nations to set their whole heart to repentance, it is better that his heart be hardened in order to increase through him My signs, and you will recognize my might . . . Nevertheless, as regards the first five plagues it is not stated, “And Adonai hardened the heart of Pharaoh,” but “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.” Rashi, (1040-1105, France)
Maimonides writes: “Sometimes a man’s offense is so grave that he forecloses the possibility of repentance. At first, [Pharaoh] sinned repeatedly of his own free will, until he forfeited the capacity to repent. Eric Fromm has written, “Pharaoh’s heart hardens because he keeps on doing evil. It hardens to a point where no more change or repentance is possible…The longer he refuses to choose the right, the harder his heart becomes…until there is no longer any freedom of choice left in him.” God has structured the human heart in such a way that Pharaoh prevents himself from changing. Etz Hayim Commentary (Exodus 7:3)
The final decision always rests with man. At the beginning, however, man is free to choose any path of action he so desires. He is afforded equal opportunity to do good or evil. But as soon as he has made his first choice, then the opportunities are no longer so evenly balanced. The more he persists in the first path of his choosing, shall we say, the evil path, the harder will it become for him to revert to the good path, even though his essential freedom of choice is not affected. In other words, it is not the Almighty who has hampered his freedom and made the path of repentance difficult. He has, by his own choice and persistence in evil, placed obstacles in the way leading back to reformation. Nehama Leibowitz