1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea.

3 For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.

4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord. And they did so.

Thus far, God had been leading Israel by day and by night, moving them as quickly through the land as He could. Now, though, He instructed them to stop their progress and make camp, and He deliberately instructed them to do it with their backs to the sea, thus cutting off any escape route.

God even said that this was so Pharaoh would see a moment of supposed weakness where the Israelites would be “entangled in the land.” This would tempt Pharaoh to come out with his armies and destroy them. Pharaoh would think that the Israelites had walked themselves into a trap of their own making. And indeed it was a trap, but a trap for catching Egyptians!

Thus, it was Pharaoh’s hubris that was to be his downfall. He could, of course, have left well-enough alone, but God already knew that he would not. The trap was effective because it was targeted towards Pharaoh’s character flaw: his pride and unwillingness to accept when he had lost. Due to this flaw he had already unnecessarily subjected his people to unnecessary suffering through the plagues, and now he would do so again.

Of course, verse 4 does say that God would harden Pharaoh’s heart, but I’ve already written many times that I believe this rendering is inaccurate, given the other times where it instead says that it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart. And while this may not be the most significant of evidences, after reading today’s verses it occurs to me that another reason for believing that Pharaoh was culpable for his actions is that to assume otherwise would disrupt his character arc. Pharaoh is a type and example to us all of hubris and pride and self-defeat, but his cautionary tale would lose all its weight if he wasn’t a free agent in choosing that path of self-destruction. From a narrative perspective, it is essential that Pharaoh chose of his own free will to do evil so that the moral of his story may resonate in our hearts.