In answer to the video "Biblical Insights 12: Pharaoh's Heavy Heart"
Let us see first how the Quran addresses the issue of Pharao's heart before getting into the Biblical depiction. In the Quran it was not until after Pharao's obstinate rejection of God's signs that were actually meant at making him mend his ways 7:130-5,17:101-2,20:56,43:48 but that had the reverse effect of increasing his arrogance and folly, that his and his official's hearts were irreversibly hardened, kept away from the correct path 10:75-89,40:37. It is interesting that the Bible says the entire opposite. Pharao's heart was hardenned from the get go, before he even had a chance to reform himself by being exposed to Moses' message and miracles.
In the Quran, instead of this being some kind of arbitrary and wanton divine curse, it is but a natural consequence of repeated, willful spiritual neglect to the point spirituality is degraded beyond repair.
The Quran gives several transgressions, which, despite the warnings, brought Pharao closer to spiritual collapse; going as far as requesting for the building of a tower to reach for the heavens and disprove Moses' claims, misusing his powers without limits to prevent the people from practicing the true religion and establishing places of worship, and finally the direct attempt at murdering God's manifest messenger 44:20-22. Disbelievers of all times suffer the same consequences when they repeatedly deny God's signs 13:33. At that point, once it had been made clear that Moses' opponents will not desist from rejecting and will only increase further in their animosity, to the extent that Moses and his people had no other option but to flee, Moses invoked Allah's curse upon his enemies, asking that God might harden Pharao's heart and destroy what gave him the ability to oppress the people and corrupt the land, and God accepted Moses' prayer instantly.
As already shown, Pharao and his ministers were already engaging in the typical behavior of spiritual self-destruction. They were going to meet the natural consequences of their behavior with or without the Moses' prayers. In fact in introduction to the story of Moses and as a reminder of His established system of moral accountability and causality, God says that a seal is set on the hearts of those who repeatedly reject and transgress when the clear communications of the prophets come to them 10:74, as was Pharao's case.
And regarding the utter destruction of his power, this came in answer to Pharao's repeated rejection of the signs, including the 9 manifest signs 7:133,17:101 until the final one and Moses was warned to flee the land by night with his people before the punishement was inflicted
26:52-68,43:49-56,44:23-30,7:134-6"if you remove the plague from us, we will certainly believe in you and we will certainly send away with you the children of Israel. But when We removed the plague from them till a term which they should attain lo! they broke (the promise). Therefore We inflicted retribution on them and drowned them in the sea because they rejected Our signs and were heedless of them".
This is just Another instance of the Quran restoring the truth of what was forgotten and distorted
20:99"Thus do We relate to you (some) of the news of what has gone before; and indeed We have given to you a Reminder from Ourselves".
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