Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go.
⛓ Read Exodus 4 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
v.18 'he hardens whom he desires' draws on the recurring Exodus motif that the LORD hardens Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 14:4). Paul generalizes the hardening theme from the plague narrative.
Medium confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
The Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart so he will not believe parallels God sending a working of error so that they believe the lie and are condemned. The Pharaoh-hardening pattern stands behind judicial delusion.
Medium confidenceThe diagnosis 'for your hardness of heart' resonates with the Pentateuch's hardened-heart vocabulary, of which the Exodus Pharaoh cycle is the paradigm. The motif frames Israel's recalcitrance as the reason for the concession. Low confidence and contested: thematic vocabulary rather than a specific citation.
Low confidence