TO BE STRONG, to STRENGTHEN — and, of a heart, to HARDEN, make firm and unyielding. It opens the Exodus's hardest theological thread: 'I will HARDEN (chazaq) his heart, and he will not let the people go' (4:21). Across the plagues the book says both that JEHOVAH hardened Pharaoh's heart and that PHARAOH hardened his own (and uses two other verbs, kavad 'made heavy' and qashah 'made stubborn', alongside this one). Scripture holds the divine and the human hardening together without resolving them; the translation keeps the strong verb rather than softening it. → first discussed at Exod 4:21