What About This "God Hardens the Heart" Business?

Exodus 9:12 states "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses." This seems to imply that God forced Pharaoh's free will to make him do something wrong. There are other examples. On the road to Damascus Saul became blind. To see again he had to obey God. Not much of a choice really it seems. If God does interfere with free will then why wouldn't He alter the mind of murderers or child molesters and blind them, so to speak, until they saw the truth?
So, what does it mean that God hardened Pharoah’s heart? The moral of this story seems to be that God hardens the hearts of those who harden themselves. Put another way -- which comes first -- the chicken or the egg? If you study Exodus 4-14 you will find the term "hardened the heart" (or a similar phrase) used some 18 times. There are times when the Scripture says that God hardened Pharoah's heart, and there are times when we read that Pharoah hardened his own heart. Sometimes the event is recorded passively, as in the Pharoah's heart was hardened -- who initiated the hardening of Pharoah's heart is left out in such cases.
What happened here -- and how do we understand it? About 1,500 years after it happened, Paul tried to work through it (Romans 9:14-18) and he was far closer to that time chronologically and culturally than we are. God is, of course, the first cause -- the Creator. All that comes after derives from Him. So, since He created Pharoah, it can easily be said that He hardened Pharoah's heart, for after all, had God not created humans, no human would ever harden his or her heart. God may have hardened Pharoah's heart simply because Pharoah was human. Or God may have added to Pharoah's hard-hearted, stubborn will by directly combatting him with plagues, which caused Pharoah to be even more resistant. Hebrew culture and worldview accepted such a perspective more than our 21st century Western culture, which glorifies human decision, choice and independence, and does not see our choices are inter-related to God, not as both/and, but as either/or.
As an illustration, consider parents and teens. Sometimes the best way for a parent to get a teen to do something is not to make a big deal of it. -- or even to suggest doing the opposite. The recording industry has known, for over 50 years, that one of the fastest ways to endear teens to a “star” is to revolt their parents. Teens like what turns off and revolts their parents. So, who is doing the hardening of the heart in such cases?

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