7533. 'And Jehovah made Pharaoh's heart unyielding' means that they remained obstinate. This is clear from the meaning of 'the heart being made unyielding', 'hardened', and 'stubborn' as obstinacy, dealt with in 7272, 7300, 7305. When it says that Jehovah made his heart unyielding the meaning in the internal sense is not that Jehovah but that they themselves made their heart unyielding, that is, remained obstinate. For the evil present with a person is what makes him unyielding or obstinately opposed to Divine things. Such evil comes out of the person himself; and it enters him from hell, not from heaven. Nothing but good can enter him from the Lord by way of heaven; evil cannot emanate from good, still less from Goodness itself. Evil emanates from origins of its own, that is to say, from the opposites of love to God and love towards the neighbour. Such origins reside with man, not at all with God. From this it is evident that when it states in the Word that God causes something bad to happen, it is a statement made in accordance with outward appearances. But for more on these matters see 2447, 6991, 6997.

589. These and so many other places in the Word make it clear that the manner of speaking is in accordance with the outward appearances that are proper to man. Consequently anyone who wishes to confirm false assumptions from the outward appearances according to which the Word speaks could do so from countless places. Confirming false assumptions from the Word is one thing however, believing in simplicity what the Word contains is quite another. Anybody confirming false assumptions first of all adopts an assumption and then refuses to withdraw from it or to retract the smallest detail. Instead he scrapes together and piles up confirmatory material wherever he can, doing so even from the Word, till at length his self-persuasion renders him incapable any more of seeing the truth. Anybody however who believes in simplicity, or simple-heartedly, has no preconceived assumptions. Instead he thinks that because the Lord has said it, it is the truth. And if he is shown by means of other statements in the Word how the matter is to be understood, there and then he assents to it and in his heart rejoices. The person therefore who believes in simplicity that the Lord is angry, punishes, repents, and grieves, and in so believing fears evil and does what is good, comes to no harm. For by believing all this of the Lord he also believes that the Lord sees every single thing. And that being his faith, he is after that enlightened in all other matters of faith, in the next life if not already in this. It is quite different in the case of people who, prompted by filthy self-love or by love of the world, persuade themselves of what results from preconceived assumptions.