Most people are troubled by the idea of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart toward a particular course of action, but normally console themselves with the idea that God only hardened Pharaoh’s heart after Pharaoh hardened his own heart first. But that isn’t the biblical record. In the narrative (Ex 4), God tells Moses that He will (future tense is implied) harden Pharaoh’s heart. This is before any of the plagues have been administered. This is before the first confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh had occurred. God was telling Moses what He would do and the reason He was going to do all this was to bring honor upon Himself.
Now that just makes us uncomfortable. Somehow we want to think ill of God if He does something for His own glory—but why? Whose glory should the sovereign of the Universe seek if not His Own?
Answer that and everything begins to make sense…
