it and made his heart strong"
(Deut. ii. 30). But since it does not occur anywhere in all the
narrative of what God actually did with Pharaoh, it is only just to
interpret this phrase in the prediction by what we read elsewhere of the
manner of its fulfilment.

The second word is explained in the margin as meaning _to make strong_.
Already God had employed it when He said "I will _make strong_ his
heart" (iv. 21), and this is the term used of the first fulfilment of
the menace, after the sixth plague (ix. 12). God is not said to
interfere again after the seventh, which had few special terrors for
Pharaoh himself; but from henceforth the expression "to make _strong_"
alternates with the phrase "to make _heavy_." "Go in unto Pharaoh, for I
have made heavy his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might
show these My signs in the midst of them" (x. 1).

It may be safely assumed that these two expressions cover between them
all that is asserted of the judicial action of God in preventing a
recoil of Pharaoh from his calamities. Now, the strengthening of a
heart, however punitive and disastrous when a man's will is evil (just
as the strengthening of his arm is disastrous then), has in itself no
immorality inherent. It is a thing as often good as bad,--as when Israel
and Joshua are exhorted to "Be _strong_ and of a good courage" (Deut.
xxxi. 6, 7, 23), and when the angel laid his hand upon Daniel and said,
"Be strong, yea, be strong" (Dan. x. 19). In these passages the phrase
is identical with that which describes the process by which Pharaoh was
prevented from cowering under the tremendous blows he had provoked.

The other expression is to make heavy or dull. Thus "the eyes of Israel
were _heavy_ with age" (Gen. xlviii. 10), and as we speak of a _weight_
of honour, equally with the heaviness of a dull man, so we are twice
commanded, "Make heavy (honour) thy father and thy mother"; and the Lord
declares, "I will make Myself heavy (get Me honour) upon Pharaoh" (Deut.
v. 16, Exod. xx. 12, xiv. 4, 17, 18). In these latter references it will
be observed that the making "strong" the heart of Pharaoh, and the
making "Myself heavy" are so connected as almost to show a design of
indicating how far is either expression from conveying the notion of
immorality, infused into a human heart by God. For one of the two
phrases which have been thus interpreted is still applied to Pharaoh;
but the other (and the more sinister, as we sh