“And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart” (Sh’mos 7:3). One of the questions discussed at length is how G-d could have taken away Pharaoh’s free will, and then, after preventing him from letting the Children of Israel leave, punish him for it. If he had no choice in the matter, what did he do wrong?

Ramban quotes Sh’mos Rabbah (5:6 and 13:4), and says that these Midrashim represent two different approaches to the issue. According to the first of these approaches (which is similar to Rambam’s approach, see Hilchos T’shuvah 6:3), Pharaoh wasn’t being punished for disobeying G-d by not letting the Children of Israel leave after G-d demanded that he do so, but for the things he had already done to the Children of Israel before that, the harsh decrees he made against them and the way they were mistreated. (Ramban adds that the extent of the mistreatment was so bad that G-d didn’t give him a chance to repent, by hardening his heart.) The second approach, which may be similar to Rashi’s (see Mizrachi), is that G-d only hardened (or strengthened, or made “heavy”) Pharaoh’s heart for the last five plagues (and after the tenth one, so that he would chase them into the Red Sea); his decision not to let the Children of Israel leave before the first five plagues was made using his own free will, and he could therefore be punished for it. True, without G-d preventing Pharaoh from giving in to His demands he would have let them go, but not because he realized the error of his ways; the reason Pharaoh would have given in was because he couldn’t take the suffering of the plagues anymore, and that is not repentance (at least not repentance done through free will). Therefore, in order to teach everyone (including and especially us) the magnitude of G-d’s “greatness,” He didn’t let Pharaoh succumb to the pressure of the plagues so that He could bring more plagues upon Egypt.

S’fornu’s approach starts off in a similar way as Ramban’s second approach, that after the first five plagues Pharaoh would only have given in because he couldn’t take the beating anymore, not because he now recognized how great G-d is and he should therefore listen to Him. But instead of the “payoff” being that G-d therefore prevented Pharaoh from giving in so that He could bring the last five plagues and cause everyone to come to realize His “greatness,” according to S’fornu G-d gave Pharaoh the ability to withstand the beating in order to allow him to decide, based on his own free will, whether or not to listen to G-d and let the Children of Israel leave. Rather that taking away Pharaoh’s free will, G-d was restoring it by giving him the strength to tolerate the pain thay was being inflicted upon him. [Malbim (4:22-23) has the same approach.] There are other approaches as well, and I would like to add one more possibility.

There are two additional issues raised regarding Pharaoh’s punishment. First of all, this wasn’t necessarily (or likely) the same Pharaoh that had enslaved the Children of Israel and mistreated them from the start. Although Rashi says that the “death” of Pharaoh that preceded G-d sending Moshe to take the Children of Israel out of Egypt (2:23) refers to this same Pharaoh who was now stricken with “tzora’as,” and also says that the “death” of those who wanted to kill Moshe (4:19) refers to Dasan and Aviram, who became poor, and not Pharaoh, a simple reading of the verses (see Rashbam, S’fornu, and many others) is that Pharaoh, who had tried to kill Moshe after finding out that he had killed the Egyptian who was beating an Israelite, had died, and a new Pharaoh had taken over. This question isn‘t such a strong one, though, as the new Pharaoh was at least as bad as the previous one (as evidenced by the national “sigh” that occurred when he took over), and, as pointed out by Bais Efrayim, his continuation of the policies of the previous Pharaoh is tantamount to agreeing with them. Since he had the opportunity to adjust the way the Children of Israel were being treated and didn’t, it is as if he had issued those very same decrees himself. Nevertheless, let’s keep this issue in mind as we proceed.

Another issue I have heard raised is why the Egyptians were punished for the decrees made by their king (Pharaoh). Just because Pharaoh was stubborn and haughty, refusing to give in to G-d’s demands, why must everyone, young and old, rich and poor, the nobility and the peasantry, have to suffer the devastation of the plagues? However, this line of thinking has little basis, as it was the general populace that carried out the decrees (I will avoid the temptation to make a comparison to more recent regimes where totalitarian leadership does not absolve those who carried out the policies set forth by the government). As a matter of fact, our sages, of blessed memory (Sh’mos Rabbah 1:8, Tanchuma Sh’mos 5/7) tell us that it wasn’t Pharaoh who started the servitude, it was those over whom he ruled. The Egyptians wanted to subdue the Children of Israel, but Pharaoh had refused, reminding them of everything that Yosef had done for them. As a result, they rebelled against him and removed him from power. Only after Pharaoh agreed to go along with their plan was he able to regain his position (although, as Sh’mos Rabbah 1:9 tells us, once that happened he initiated many of the decrees, so was punished first). When the “measure for measure” nature of the plagues is described (see pg. 3 of http://www.aishdas.org/ta/5767/vaera.pdf and pg. 4 of http://www.aishdas.org/ta/5767/bo.pdf), many of the things the Egyptians did that corresponded to how they were affected by a specific plague were not things that could have been imposed by the authorities (such as certain menial tasks, and the way they made their personal slaves suffer when things didn’t go as impossibly perfect as was demanded). The oppressiveness was so pervasive that even the servants and the captives took part, and rejoiced in the suffering of the Children of Israel (see Rashi on 11:5 and 12:29). If anything, it was the general populace that wanted, enjoyed, and benefited most from having and keeping the Children of Israel as slaves. Pharaoh could have anything he wanted done for him even if there was no slave class, the peasants could not.

“The heart of a king is in G-d’s hands” (Mishlay 21:1). This verse is quoted by Ramban to support his second approach, that G-d wouldn’t let Pharaoh give in so that His “greatness” would become known. G-d makes decisions for kings (controlling their decision-making process) because of the impact a king’s decisions have on so many people, especially those he rules over. Since the Egyptian people deserved to be punished, G-d made the decision for Pharaoh that he shouldn’t let the Children of Israel leave (yet) so that his subjects would have to experience the suffering of the last five plagues. Even if this wasn’t the same Pharaoh who decreed that the infants be tossed into the Nile (etc.), the Egyptian people (as a whole) were very much a part of it, and did so (as well as similar atrocities) enthusiastically. In order to carry out the full 12 months of punishment against the Egyptians, G-d may have overruled Pharaoh’s free will. But rather than it being done specifically to punish him (as Ramban suggests in his first approach), it may have been done to punish his people.