<HTML>Hi Shalom!
I was a little surprised to see Rabbi Zvi Grumet's explanation to
"Vayikhbad libo" as a change of heart. Zvi says that this is a
colloquialism still used to mean that. I never heard it said Hebrew. On
the contrary: It usually means an impediment to a change of heart. A
person, in this question Paroh, made a promise that we have no way of
telling whether he intended to keep or not. In any case: there certainly
was not an internalization of the need to do the right things and let Bney
Israel go. But then, after the incentive to grant them their wish
disappears -- he goes back to he first inclination which is to NOT let
them go.
Somewhat similar is the Pasuk in Yishayah 6, 10: "Hashmen lev haam hazeh
veoznaiv hachbed" - make the heart of these people fat and their ears
heavy. Why? Because Hashem does not want them to hear the Navi and
change their ways at this point. So the Hachbadah is a shield from a
change of heart, the reason things will stay the same.
Please look also in Yechezkel 2, 4 and 3, 7.
Rabbi Avner Taler</HTML>
