Are people lost because they are hardened, or hardened because they are lost?
People are hardened because they are lost, not lost because they are hardened. Pharaoh, like anyone, hardened his own heart by rejecting God when placed before acceptance or rejection. Though Scripture says God hardened him, the weight of God's wrath came because Pharaoh first opposed God.
Les teaches that the word “hardeneth” in this passage is usually translated “heavy.” When Isaiah spoke of a heavy burden, it was the same Hebrew word. The more Pharaoh tried to oppose God, the more the weight of God’s wrath weighed down on him. Pharaoh, like anyone today, came to the place of hardening his own heart—not because God made him do it, but because God put him in a place of either accepting or rejecting, and by rejecting he hardened his own heart. Even though Scripture says God hardened, the repeated point is: men are not lost because they are hardened; they are hardened because they are lost.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.