The Heart, Its Hardening, Pharaoh & The Papyrus of Ani—and How That Might Just Determine Everything

[Reading time: 5 minutes]

See here for a video synthesis of the text below in light of Covid-19.

See here for an unreleased synthesis by John Currid, RTS professor emeritus of Old Testament and Egyptologist, on this subject.

The Centrality of the Heart

Given our recent posts on testing (peirasmós), we present a synthesis of how the Lord uses testing to reveal the state of the human heart.

As we are currently in a somewhat discombobulating reality of a global pandemic where politics and medicine have become mixed in a way never before (at least in recent memory), we seek to move to a deeper level examining not the manifestation but the heart.

As such, rather than focusing on the external means of testing and trial (be it plagues, famine, war, economic depression, etc.), which constantly change based on innumerable variables operating in any particular era (and, we might add, what the Lord deems that any particular era needs at any given time), it seems more appropriate to direct our thoughts beyond the outward means to the internal realities that are primary and unchanging. 

Why There Is Testing?

We begin with a quote from Deuteronomy 8, which Christ will use in His own wilderness testings more than millenia afterwards:

Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, 

That you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. 

And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, 

To humble you and test (nasah) you, 

To know (yada) what was in your heart (lebab), whether you would keep His commandments or not. 

That is the key—testing reveals the state of the heart.

Now, to seek to understand this from an Ancient Near East perspective, we look briefly at the Book of the Dead and the Papyrus of Ani.

The Heart and the Papyrus of Ani

In the Book of the Dead, an ancient Egyptian text from the New Kingdom period (that was contemporary with the Mosaic writings), the condition of the heart is presented as the ultimate criteria for the judgment of the human soul. 

In one section, The Papyrus of Ani, there is a description of future judgment. Ani and his wife, Tootoo, are depicted entering the hall of judgment, where there are the balances of truth and righteousness by which he, and all men, are to be judged.

Annubis, the god of the underworld, is there weighing men on the balance. 

Roth stands to record the verdict. 

Amentet, the female goddess of death, waits to devour the condemned sinner

To testify on Ani's behalf are the twin gods of birth with Bah, Ani's soul

The Criteria

Anubis then calls for the heart of Ani to be weighed on the scales against the feather of truth and righteousness.

If his heart is too heavy and outweighs the feather, he is condemned to eternal death and is cast to Amentet.

From Ani to Pharaoh

What we see in the concurrent literature of Deuteronomy is a similar trial. And this time, it was not Ani, but Pharaoh who is to be judged.

The hermeneutic of the Mosaic writings on this point emphasize that the heart of Pharaoh was 'made heavy' (חזק [chazaq] and בד [kabad])—which are used 14x in the Exodus narrative:

“And the Lord hardened Pharoah's heart”: 7x (Ex 7:13, 9:12, 10:1, 10:21, 10:27, 11:10);

“And Pharoah hardened his own heart”: 3x (Ex 8:15, 8:32, 9:34);

And the result is that:

“Pharaoh's heart was hardened”: 4x (Ex 7:22, 8:19, 9:7, 9:35).

So then the judgment of Pharaoh and his kingdom occurs the LORD, in the final occurrence, “hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt” to such a degree that he “pursued after the children of Israel” to his own and his army’s demise at the Red Sea with the children of Israel going out “with an high hand” (Ex 14:8).

This is very instructive.

According to the Egyptian conception of judgment, Pharaoh was judged a sinner and ultimately condemned because his heart was too heavy. He who was worshiped as a sinless divinity is now judged to eternal death because of the weight of his heart.  

Furthermore, as Currid makes clear, his judgment served as a polemic against the gods of Egypt and the Egyptian belief that the heart of Pharaoh was the all-controlling factor in history. 

In the Memphite theology, the gods, Rae and Horis, were believed to be sovereign over all things by means of their hearts. Since Pharaoh was considered to be the divine incarnation of Rae and Horis, his heart was, therefore, believed to be sovereign over all creation.

This conception is absolutely destroyed by the hardening and subsequent judgment of the heart of Pharaoh.

Deut 8 continued, and with this we bring the discussion on the testing of the heart to a close.

Deuteronomy 8, Testing and the True Bread

Moses declares on the verge of the Promised Land that God led the people of Israel—His people—into the wilderness for forty years to show them their continual need and His continual provision in the exact way they needed:

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know,

That He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone;

But man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord (Mt 4:4; Lk 4:4).

Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.

You should know in your heart that as a man chastens (יְיַסֵּ֥ר [yasar] his son, so the Lord your God chastens [מְיַסְּרֶֽךָּ׃; yasar] you.

Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him (Deut 8:3-5).

For when the heart of man is tested, this is the pathway to true healing—simply and without pretension, keeping the commandments of the Lord our God and walking in his ways in the wisdom that comes not from man nor this Age but from the fear of the Lord.