7305. 'Pharaoh's heart is inflexible; he refuses to send the people away' means that they were obstinately determined not to leave those whom they were molesting. This is clear from the meaning of 'heart is inflexible', also 'unyielding' and 'hardened', as obstinacy, as above in 7272, 7300; from the meaning of 'refusing to send away' as not leaving; and from the representation of 'Pharaoh', about whom these things are said, as those who engage in molestation, dealt with previously.

This can, of course, be a wonderful thing: It is essential for our journey to heaven, and is the reason for the holiness of marriage. But when the men represent falsity it can also be horrendously twisted, as in the attempted homosexual rape in Sodom (Genesis 19) and the rape of the concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19). In a general sense, men represent things of the intellect -- facts, ideas, knowledge, everything from the deepest truths to the most pernicious falsities about life and the Lord. Women in general represents things of affection -- desire, passion, caring, everything from the most exalted love for the Lord to the darkest hatred. When a man “knows” a woman in the Bible, then, it represents a joining together of those intellectual and affectionate faculties. “Know" is also often used in connection with virginity. A women who has “not known a man” represents the affection for truth, unsullied by falsity.