In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

8135. 'And I will harden Pharaoh's heart' means that the obstinacy of those steeped in falsities arising from evil would still remain. This is clear from the meaning of 'being hardened' as their obstinate determination, dealt with in 7272, 7300, 7305; and from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as those who are steeped in falsities arising from evil, or what amounts to the same thing, those who are lost in damnation, as above in 8132. The words 'Pharaoh's heart' are used because in the genuine sense 'heart' means the good of heavenly love, 3313, 3635, 3883-3896, 7542, and therefore in the contrary sense means evil, at this point the evil of those who have known [the truths of] faith and led a life of evil.