A Jewish–Christian Reading of Exodus, Isaiah 63,
and the Gospel’s Rejection in Light of the Bei Avidan Tradition
“Hiddenness is not God’s absence but His faithfulness deferred;
not negation but the wound through which glory returns.”
Introduction
In earlier reflections on Isaiah 63: Though a Jewish Gloss upon Redemption, I argued that the bloodied garments of the divine warrior are less about vengeance than about the covenant’s wounded fidelity. This essay extends that trajectory, turning from divine pathos to human resistance. If Isaiah 63 unveils God’s perseverance in love, Collective Hardening examines the tragic corollary—the way revelation, when resisted, becomes a pedagogy of judgment. From Pharaoh’s Egypt to the rabbinic memory of the Aven Gilyon, the pattern repeats: divine speech meets human resistance, and the history of salvation unfolds through the tension between mercy offered and mercy deferred.
I. The Weight of Revelation
Few theological ideas reveal the paradox of divine sovereignty and human resistance as sharply as hardening. In Scripture, hardening is not a mere defect of character but the threshold where divine revelation becomes unbearable. Israel’s liberation in Exodus occurs through Pharaoh’s obstinacy, and that same obstinacy later reappears within Israel herself. What begins as Egypt’s defiance of the word of God becomes Israel’s own deafness to prophecy, and ultimately, the hardening of the nations. Hardening, therefore, is not anomaly but covenantal instrument—an education in mercy through the limits of autonomy.¹
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In earlier reflections on Isaiah 63: Though a Jewish Gloss upon Redemption, I argued that the bloodied garments of the divine warrior are less about vengeance than about the covenant’s wounded fidelity. This essay extends that trajectory, turning from divine pathos to human resistance. If Isaiah 63 unveils God’s perseverance in love, Collective Hardening examines the tragic corollary—the way revelation, when resisted, becomes a pedagogy of judgment. From Pharaoh’s Egypt to the rabbinic memory of the Aven Gilyon, the pattern repeats: divine speech meets human resistance, and the history of salvation unfolds through the tension between mercy offered and mercy deferred.
I. The Weight of Revelation
Few theological ideas reveal the paradox of divine sovereignty and human resistance as sharply as hardening. In Scripture, hardening is not a mere defect of character but the threshold where divine revelation becomes unbearable. Israel’s liberation in Exodus occurs through Pharaoh’s obstinacy, and that same obstinacy later reappears within Israel herself. What begins as Egypt’s defiance of the word of God becomes Israel’s own deafness to prophecy, and ultimately, the hardening of the nations. Hardening, therefore, is not anomaly but covenantal instrument—an education in mercy through the limits of autonomy.¹
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II. The Exodus Archetype: Pharaoh’s Heart and the Divine Hand
Exodus alternates between “Pharaoh hardened his heart,” “Pharaoh’s heart was strengthened,” and “the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” The Hebrew verbs—ḥāzaq (חָזַק, to strengthen), kābēd (כָּבֵד, to make heavy), and qāshāh (קָשָׁה, to make rigid)—trace a progression: resolve, weight, calcification.² Rashi comments that God’s intervention merely confirmed Pharaoh’s initiative: “Since he hardened his heart six times on his own, God hardened it thereafter to make known His power.”³ Midrash Tanchuma adds, “When a man sins and repeats it, it becomes to him as if permitted.”⁴ Pharaoh thus embodies judicial hardening—the man who mistakes divine patience for divine absence.
Exodus alternates between “Pharaoh hardened his heart,” “Pharaoh’s heart was strengthened,” and “the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” The Hebrew verbs—ḥāzaq (חָזַק, to strengthen), kābēd (כָּבֵד, to make heavy), and qāshāh (קָשָׁה, to make rigid)—trace a progression: resolve, weight, calcification.² Rashi comments that God’s intervention merely confirmed Pharaoh’s initiative: “Since he hardened his heart six times on his own, God hardened it thereafter to make known His power.”³ Midrash Tanchuma adds, “When a man sins and repeats it, it becomes to him as if permitted.”⁴ Pharaoh thus embodies judicial hardening—the man who mistakes divine patience for divine absence.
Yet ḥāzaq also means “to strengthen” in a positive sense. The same power that enables Moses to stand before Pharaoh empowers Pharaoh to resist. The difference lies not in energy but in orientation. Hardening is what happens when divine strength meets unbent will. Pharaoh becomes the anti-Moses: both encounter revelation; one yields, the other clenches.
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III. From Pharaoh to Israel: Prophetic Reversal
The prophets transform the Exodus motif into a mirror. Isaiah’s call—“Make the heart of this people dull, their ears heavy, and their eyes shut” (Isa 6:10)—employs the same verbs that describe Pharaoh. Israel has become Egypt to herself.
The prophets transform the Exodus motif into a mirror. Isaiah’s call—“Make the heart of this people dull, their ears heavy, and their eyes shut” (Isa 6:10)—employs the same verbs that describe Pharaoh. Israel has become Egypt to herself.
Isaiah 63 recalls the Exodus in covenantal lament: “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them… but they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit” (63:9–10). The God who once hardened Egypt now hides His face from His own. Rabbinic commentators read this as hester panim—the concealment that educates fidelity. Targum Jonathanrenders the passage messianically: the Malʾakh Panim, the Angel of the Presence, reappears “in garments dyed red from Bozrah.” Hardening, even here, conceals a deferred tenderness—the divine absence that awakens longing.⁵
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IV. The Logic of Collective Hardening
Hardening is not simply moral obstinacy but covenantal rhythm. Nations, like individuals, develop calluses through repeated resistance. Sifre Deuteronomy teaches: “When Israel hardens her heart, the Shekhinah departs—to awaken her by longing.”⁶ Divine withdrawal provokes desire; absence preserves relationship.
Hardening is not simply moral obstinacy but covenantal rhythm. Nations, like individuals, develop calluses through repeated resistance. Sifre Deuteronomy teaches: “When Israel hardens her heart, the Shekhinah departs—to awaken her by longing.”⁶ Divine withdrawal provokes desire; absence preserves relationship.
Ezekiel 36:26 reverses the pattern: “I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” The goal of hardening is not judgment but re-sensitization—the restoration of touch.
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V. Paul’s Midrash: Hardening Until Fullness
Paul reads Exodus and Isaiah midrashically. In Romans 9–11 Pharaoh becomes the cipher for Israel: “He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens.” For Paul, Israel’s resistance is temporary—“until the fullness of the nations comes in” (Rom 11:25). God’s hardening of Israel parallels Pharaoh’s, not to reject her but to manifest endurance. In the end, “God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy upon all” (11:32). Hardening universalizes guilt so that mercy may be universal. Without that possibility, covenant would collapse into coercion; its risk is its dignity.⁷
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Paul reads Exodus and Isaiah midrashically. In Romans 9–11 Pharaoh becomes the cipher for Israel: “He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens.” For Paul, Israel’s resistance is temporary—“until the fullness of the nations comes in” (Rom 11:25). God’s hardening of Israel parallels Pharaoh’s, not to reject her but to manifest endurance. In the end, “God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy upon all” (11:32). Hardening universalizes guilt so that mercy may be universal. Without that possibility, covenant would collapse into coercion; its risk is its dignity.⁷
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VI. Rabbinic Echoes and the Pedagogy of Delay
Rabbinic wisdom often interprets delay as divine mercy. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana teaches: “If Israel were punished for every transgression, she would not endure even one day; therefore God endures her until she returns.”⁸ Midrash on Psalms 90 compares the process to dew softening stone; Avot de-Rabbi Natan likens it to the potter who tests his vessels in fire. Hardening becomes refinement—the discipline of durability.
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Rabbinic wisdom often interprets delay as divine mercy. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana teaches: “If Israel were punished for every transgression, she would not endure even one day; therefore God endures her until she returns.”⁸ Midrash on Psalms 90 compares the process to dew softening stone; Avot de-Rabbi Natan likens it to the potter who tests his vessels in fire. Hardening becomes refinement—the discipline of durability.
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VII. The Nations as Mirrors: Edom and Ishmael
Prophetic imagination extends hardening beyond Israel to her kin. Edom represents appropriated grace—claiming election without obedience; Ishmael, transcendent protest—rejecting divine nearness for fear of blasphemy. Both arise from Abraham’s line, proving that covenantal proximity, not distance, provokes the hardest hearts.
Prophetic imagination extends hardening beyond Israel to her kin. Edom represents appropriated grace—claiming election without obedience; Ishmael, transcendent protest—rejecting divine nearness for fear of blasphemy. Both arise from Abraham’s line, proving that covenantal proximity, not distance, provokes the hardest hearts.
Isaiah 63’s crimson figure from Edom embodies divine heartbreak: “I looked, but there was no one to help… so My own arm brought salvation.” God’s vengeance is not mere wrath but wounded fidelity—the winepress of spurned love.⁹
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VIII. The Bei Avidan and the Hardened Word
Rabbinic memory preserves another form of collective hardening—not in empire but in text. Bavli Shabbat 116a records the debate over whether the Books of the House of Avidan should be rescued from a fire on the Sabbath. These writings, used in Greco-Roman disputations between Jews and Christians, were likely copies of the Christian Evangelion. Rabbi Meir called them ʾAven Gilyon (“worthless scroll”), and Rabbi Yoḥanan called them ʾAvon Gilyon (“sinful scroll”).¹⁰
Rabbinic memory preserves another form of collective hardening—not in empire but in text. Bavli Shabbat 116a records the debate over whether the Books of the House of Avidan should be rescued from a fire on the Sabbath. These writings, used in Greco-Roman disputations between Jews and Christians, were likely copies of the Christian Evangelion. Rabbi Meir called them ʾAven Gilyon (“worthless scroll”), and Rabbi Yoḥanan called them ʾAvon Gilyon (“sinful scroll”).¹⁰
This pun on Evangelion reveals the linguistic form of hardening. Where Christians proclaimed “good news,” the rabbis heard aven—iniquity. Their renaming marked a halakhic boundary: only Torah scrolls containing the divine Name merited rescue from flames. The Gospel was excluded not out of nihilism but out of reverence—a defensive sanctity forged under persecution.
Viewed covenantally, the Bei Avidan episode mirrors Pharaoh’s drama on a textual plane. As Pharaoh resisted the divine word, Israel now resisted the word reinterpreted by others. The hardening here is not disbelief but over-belief in custody—a zeal to guard revelation that risks losing tenderness toward its diffusion. The Aven Gilyon controversy thus stands as a monument of collective callus: revelation encountered, contested, and preserved through polemic. Even this hardness, however, became a vessel of endurance, ensuring the Torah’s survival amid imperial syncretism.
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IX. The Psychology of the Hardened Collective
Communities, like hearts, form habits of resistance. Egypt trusted its Nile, Israel her Temple, Edom her theology, Ishmael his purity. Each built systems to shield itself from divine unpredictability. Modern heirs repeat the pattern: Christendom’s institutions replay Pharaoh’s defiance; secular Israel inherits prophetic numbness; Islam’s zeal risks Ishmael’s rigidity. History rehearses the Exodus because revelation continues to press upon human autonomy. The cure is not argument but encounter—the cry that pierced Egyptian bondage: “Their cry came up unto God.” Hardening ends only when lament begins.
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Communities, like hearts, form habits of resistance. Egypt trusted its Nile, Israel her Temple, Edom her theology, Ishmael his purity. Each built systems to shield itself from divine unpredictability. Modern heirs repeat the pattern: Christendom’s institutions replay Pharaoh’s defiance; secular Israel inherits prophetic numbness; Islam’s zeal risks Ishmael’s rigidity. History rehearses the Exodus because revelation continues to press upon human autonomy. The cure is not argument but encounter—the cry that pierced Egyptian bondage: “Their cry came up unto God.” Hardening ends only when lament begins.
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X. Redemption as Re-Sensitization
Ezekiel’s “heart of flesh” is ontological restoration. To replace stone with flesh is to make humanity touchable again. Where Pharaoh’s heart was ḥāzaq, Israel’s must become rakh (soft). The sea that congealed under judgment parts under mercy; the crimson garment of wrath becomes the robe of salvation (Isa 61:10). The elements that hardened—fire, blood, judgment—become the media of renewal. The covenant is never rescinded, only reheated.
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Ezekiel’s “heart of flesh” is ontological restoration. To replace stone with flesh is to make humanity touchable again. Where Pharaoh’s heart was ḥāzaq, Israel’s must become rakh (soft). The sea that congealed under judgment parts under mercy; the crimson garment of wrath becomes the robe of salvation (Isa 61:10). The elements that hardened—fire, blood, judgment—become the media of renewal. The covenant is never rescinded, only reheated.
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XI. Conclusion — The Wound That Teaches Mercy
Collective hardening is the covenant’s dark pedagogy—the schooling of nations that resist God most. It is not abandonment but endurance. Pharaoh’s Egypt, Israel’s exile, Edom’s pride, Ishmael’s protest, and the Aven Gilyon of rabbinic memory all unveil the same mystery: the weight of revelation produces both rebellion and redemption. God allows hearts and histories to calcify so they may one day crack open under the pressure of mercy. The Exodus ends not with Pharaoh’s ruin but with Israel’s song: “The LORD has triumphed gloriously.” That song, echoed in Isaiah’s warrior and Paul’s doxology, proclaims the final paradox— that even hardness, once redeemed, becomes the vessel of tenderness.
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Collective hardening is the covenant’s dark pedagogy—the schooling of nations that resist God most. It is not abandonment but endurance. Pharaoh’s Egypt, Israel’s exile, Edom’s pride, Ishmael’s protest, and the Aven Gilyon of rabbinic memory all unveil the same mystery: the weight of revelation produces both rebellion and redemption. God allows hearts and histories to calcify so they may one day crack open under the pressure of mercy. The Exodus ends not with Pharaoh’s ruin but with Israel’s song: “The LORD has triumphed gloriously.” That song, echoed in Isaiah’s warrior and Paul’s doxology, proclaims the final paradox— that even hardness, once redeemed, becomes the vessel of tenderness.
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Endnotes
1. Nahum Sarna, Exodus (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 33–37.
1. Nahum Sarna, Exodus (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 33–37.
2. H. C. Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife: A Biblical Complex,” HUCA 44 (1973): 14–17.
3. Rashi on Exod. 7:3; cf. Ibn Ezra ad loc.
4. Midrash Tanchuma, Bo 3.
5. See Benjamin Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 182–85.
6. Sifre Devarim 43, on Deut. 11:13.
7. N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 1123–27.
8. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 5:1.
9. Shalom Spiegel, The Last Trial (Woodstock: Jewish Lights, 1993), 55–58.
10. Bavli Shabbat 116a; H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1922), 3:1047–49; Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 59–64.
