Not trying to be cute when I say that your essay is a real eye-opener. I never thought of hard-heartedness that way. For example, when God hardened Pharoah's heart, I thought of it in maybe being in both a passive sense and in an imposed sense. That still may be true, but your view sems to encompass perhaps both reactions due to Pharaoh's expectation of nothing coming from this powerless Hebrew slave. I like that view, a lot, as it makes so much sense and covers a lot of then and a lot of now human responses to the Gospel of Jesus.