(2) You shall repeat all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from his land. (3) But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that I may multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt. (4) When Pharaoh does not heed you, I will lay My hand upon Egypt and deliver My ranks, My people the Israelites, from the land of Egypt with extraordinary chastisements. (5) And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand over Egypt and bring out the Israelites from their midst.” (6) This Moses and Aaron did; as the LORD commanded them, so they did. (7) Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they made their demand on Pharaoh.
Etz Chayim Chumash: p. 356
If Pharaoh is foreordained to reject Moses' plea, if God will arrange for the confrontation to continue, how can Pharaoh be held responsible for his actions and how can we justify his being punished for what God causes him to do?
"Although 'hardening of the heart' seems deterministic, events flow naturally from the ambitions and conflicts of a human being, Pharaoh, who is seized with the delusion of self-sufficiency. While events unfold under the providence of God, their unfolding is always according to the motives of the human beings through whom God's will is done without their realizing it...Pharaoh conducted himself in conformity with his own motives and his own Godless view of his status. God made it so, but Pharaoh had only to be himself to do God's will." (Moshe Greenberg)
-1st 5 plagues, Pharaoh hardens his heart, 2nd five - God hardens his heart -- "Each choice made it more likely that he would choose similarly the next time..."
(3) Another explanation: For I have hardened his heart - Rabbi Yochanan said: Does this not provide heretics with an opportunity to open their mouths to say that he had no means of repenting, as it say "For I have hardened his heart". Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said to him: Let the mouths of the heretics be stopped up. Rather, (Mishlei 3:34) If it concerns the scorners, he scorns them. When the Holy One Blessed be He warns a man once, twice, thrice and he doesn't repent, and G-d will close his heart against repentance so that He should not exact vengeance from him for his sins. So to with the wicked Pharaoh, since Hashem sent five times to him and he took no notice, G-d then said: "You have stiffened your neck and hardened your heart; well, I will add impurity to your impurity". Hence, "For I have hardened his heart". What does "I have hardened" imply? That G-d made his heart like a liver (כבד) into which even if boiled a second time no juice enters; so also was the heart of Pharaoh made like a liver, and he did not receive the words of G-d. Hence, "For I have hardened his heart".
Quoting Nehama Lebowitz, New Studies in Shemot, Volume 1;
Ramban: If the Lord hardened his heart, then what was his crime?
והנה פירשו בשאלה אשר ישאלו הכל, אם השם הקשה את לבו מה פשעו, ויש בו שני טעמים ושניהם אמת האחד, כי פרעה ברשעו אשר עשה לישראל רעות גדולות חנם, נתחייב למנוע ממנו דרכי תשובה, כאשר באו בזה פסוקים רבים בתורה ובכתובים, ולפי מעשיו הראשונים נדון. והטעם השני, כי היו חצי המכות עליו בפשעו, כי לא נאמר בהן רק ויחזק לב פרעה (להלן פסוק יג, כב, ח טו), ויכבד פרעה את לבו (להלן ח כח, ט ז). הנה לא רצה לשלחם לכבוד השם, אבל כאשר גברו המכות עליו ונלאה לסבול אותם, רך לבו והיה נמלך לשלחם מכובד המכות, לא לעשות רצון בוראו. ואז הקשה השם את רוחו ואמץ את לבבו למען ספר שמו, כענין שכתוב והתגדלתי והתקדשתי ונודעתי לעיני גוים רבים וגו' (יחזקאל לח כג):
ואשר אמר קודם המכות (לעיל ד כא) ואני אחזק את לבו ולא ישלח את העם, יודיע למשה העתיד לעשות בו במכות האחרונות, כענין שאמר (לעיל ג יט) ואני ידעתי כי לא יתן אתכם מלך מצרים להלוך וזה טעם ואני אקשה את לב פרעה והרבתי את אותותי, כלומר שאקשה לבו למען רבות מופתי בארץ מצרים. כי בחמש מכות האחרונות גם בטביעת הים נאמר ויחזק יי (להלן יד ח), כי לב מלך ביד יי על כל אשר יחפוץ יטנו (משלי כא א):
(1) And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart – they said in the Midrash Rabbah (5:6) that [God] revealed to him that [God] would in the future harden [Pharaoh’s] heart so that judgment would be done on him for enslaving them with hard labor. And we read more there (13:4) because I made his heart heavy (Shemot 10:1) – from this verse, said Rabbi Yochanan, the minim say that he had no chance of doing teshuvah. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish answered: ‘let the mouths of the minim be closed, rather He laughs at mockers (Mishlei 3:34), he was warned once, and twice and three times and he did not repent, and He closes the door of teshuvah so to extract [retribution] from him what he sinned. So with the evil Pharaoh, God sent [warnings] to him five times and he did not listen to [God’s] words, God said to him: ‘you stiffened your neck and you made your own heart heavy, behold I am going to add impurity to your impurity.
And here is the answer to the question that everyone asks: If God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, what then was his transgression [since he had no choice]? There are two answers, which both hold true: First, Pharaoh, in his wickedness, had unjustifiably treated the Jews terribly, so he was punished with the withdrawal of the path of repentance, and there are many verses regarding this in the Torah and the Writings, and he was punished by his original deeds. Secondly, only the second half of the [ten] plagues were brought upon Egypt due to Pharaoh’s transgressions, as the Torah states, And Pharaoh’s heart was strengthened, (Shemot 7:13, 26; 8:15), and Pharaoh hardened his heart (ibid. 8:28, 9:7). He did not want to send the Jews out of Egypt for the glory of God; rather, when the plagues increased and he was becoming too worn out to withstand them, his heart softened and he decided to send them out because of the severity of the plagues themselves, but not in order to do the will of his Creator. Therefore, God strengthened his spirit and gave courage to his heart so that His Name would be declared [throughout the world], as we read: Thus will I magnify Myself, and sanctify Myself, and I will make Myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am Adønαi. (Ez. 38:23).
And that that is written before the plagues (Shemot / Ex. 3:19) and I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, this is the reason for and I will stiffen Pharaoh’s heart and multiply My wonders that is to say that I will stiffen his heart so as to increase my wonders in the land of Egypt, because in the last five plagues, and also in the drowning at the sea it is written and Adønαi strenghthened (14:8) because the heart of the king is in the hand of Adønαi He turns it how He wants.
Luzzatto (Italy, 1800-1865) - Quoted in N. Lebowitz, Shmot, Vol. 1, P. 151
The acts ascribed to God in the Scriptures are those which are unusual, the causes of which are beyond our ken. Pharaoh's stubbornness was an example of this, since his persistent refusal to heed the portents of the plagues was a matter to be wondered at...
Lebowitz: God does not deprive Pharaoh of free will - this is just the way the Scriptures describe Pharaoh's own 'stubbornness and incorrigibility'
Albo (14th-15th c.. Spain):
The wicked man becomes pious and returns to the Lord when the blow falls - out of fear of retribution...Because such a situation savours of compulsion and not of free will, the Lord hardened his heart, so that he imagined that the plague was accidental rather than providential. This was to eradicate the cowing effects of the plague itself, leaving his freewill uninfluenced by any compulsion. Only then could it be demonstrated whether his repentance was freely motivated...
"Shadows" by D.H. Lawrence
And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon’s in shadow.
And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and renewal.
And if, in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:
and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me
then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.