Exodus 10:27

Summary

Exodus 10:27 reports that Yehovah strengthened Pharaoh's heart, resulting in Pharaoh's unwillingness to release the Israelites. The verse combines a divine causative action with Pharaoh's own volitional refusal.

Key words

• va-y'chazek ("and he made strong", H2388G) — piel (intensive) form with narrative vav, indicating a sequential action where the subject actively intensifies or strengthens something, here applied causatively to the heart.
• YHWH ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the proper name functioning as the grammatical subject of the strengthening action.
• lev ("heart of", H3820A) — construct noun linking directly to "Pharaoh," forming the phrase "heart of Pharaoh" as the object being strengthened.
• 'avah ("he was willing", H0014) — qal perfect, a completed simple action describing Pharaoh's own state of will, here negated.
• l'shalcham ("to let them go", H7971H + suffix) — piel infinitive with pronominal suffix "them," expressing the purpose or content of the willingness that was absent.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure divides into two clauses joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). The first clause uses the narrative va prefix on y'chazek ("he made strong", H2388G) to advance the story: Yehovah acts upon "the heart of Pharaoh" (lev Par'oh), with lev in construct state directly bound to Par'oh, forming a single conceptual unit — "Pharaoh's heart" — as the object marked by 'et (H0853).

The second clause shifts to Pharaoh as subject: lo' avah ("he was not willing", H3808 + H0014) uses the qal perfect of 'avah, denoting a completed state of unwillingness rather than a process. This unwillingness is then specified by the infinitive construct l'shallecham ("to let them go", H7971H), itself in the piel stem — the same intensive stem used for the initial "strengthening" — with the pronominal suffix -ham ("them", H9038) referring back to the Israelites discussed earlier in the narrative context.

The grammar thus presents two distinct verbal actions in sequence: Yehovah's intensive action upon the heart, followed by Pharaoh's own perfect-tense state of refusal regarding the piel-infinitive action of "sending away."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders y'chazek ("he made strong", H2388G) with ἐσκλήρυνεν ("hardened"), and the Vulgate uses induravit ("hardened"), both conveying a hardening sense rather than a literal "strengthening," though the Hebrew piel form more literally denotes intensification. The Hebrew lo' avah ("he was not willing") is rendered by the LXX as οὐκ ἐβουλήθη ("he was not willing/did not wish") and by the Vulgate as noluit ("he refused/was unwilling"), both preserving the volitional sense of the qal perfect 'avah.