There is a very popular and very sensible phrase: don’t negotiate with terrorists. As I write those words, I am smiling, because history suggests we are far worse at following that rule than we like to admit. The phrase entered American foreign policy after the 1973 Khartoum hostage crisis, when President Richard Nixon publicly refused to negotiate following the seizure of American diplomats by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September. The statement sounded strong. It sounded principled. Within twenty four hours, two American diplomats were dead.
The phrase survived anyway. It became doctrine. It was repeated by later presidents and echoed endlessly in popular culture. And yet negotiations never truly stopped. They were simply renamed. Pressure became diplomacy. Ultimatums became process. Evil learned that patience, not surrender, was its greatest advantage.
The Hebrew Bible tells this story first.
From the opening confrontations in Egypt, Pharaoh does not behave like a man who refuses to listen. He listens. He negotiates. He offers concessions. He retracts them. Over and over again, suffering forces him to soften. Relief allows him to harden again. His heart hardens not because he is confused, but because negotiation works.
God states this before the plagues even begin:
This immediately raises a moral problem. If God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, how can Pharaoh be held accountable. If his response is known in advance, what is the point of the warnings, the negotiations, the repeated demands.
Rabbi Yaakov Medan, a contemporary Israeli teacher and Bible scholar, explains that this question misunderstands what hardening the heart means. God does not override Pharaoh’s free will. He allows Pharaoh’s chosen moral pattern to solidify.
Pharaoh begins with full freedom. Again and again, he chooses power over truth. Again and again, he treats promises as tools rather than obligations. Each plague teaches him the same lesson. Pressure passes. Control remains. Once this pattern is firmly established, God stops interrupting it. Pharaoh’s heart is hardened not by force, but by consistency.
This is why the Torah lingers on the negotiations. Pharaoh never says no outright. He says almost. Serve God, but remain in Egypt. Leave, but not far. Go, but without your children. Each offer sounds reasonable. Each one preserves leverage. Each one keeps Israel dependent.
The rhythm becomes unmistakable. Crisis. Concession. Relief. Reversal. Pharaoh’s lev, his heart, grows heavy, then frightened, then heavy again. Blood fills the Nile and he turns away. Frogs invade his palace and he pleads. The frogs die and his heart hardens once more.
Rabbi Medan points out that God repeatedly accepts Pharaoh’s promises, even knowing they will be broken. Not because God is naïve, but because Pharaoh is being given the space to reveal himself. Had Pharaoh possessed even a minimal moral conscience, he would have honored a promise made to God. Instead, he learns something darker. One can make promises under pressure and violate them without consequence.
That realization is the hardening of his heart.
At a certain point, God intensifies this hardness. Not as arbitrary punishment, but as exposure. Pharaoh is allowed to act without illusion. God explains why:
This verse is not about cruelty. It is about clarity. Evil that is endlessly negotiated with does not soften. It calcifies.
So why does God not end the story earlier. Why not strike once and be done.
Because Israel is learning their first lesson of a religious people: the lesson of faith, emunah.
Emunah is not hope that Pharaoh will change. It is not belief in softened enemies. It is trust that God keeps His word even when negotiations fail. As long as Israel waits for Pharaoh’s heart to soften permanently, they remain trapped in Egypt. Freedom begins when trust shifts away from Pharaoh’s promises and toward God’s command.
This is why Moses never alters the demand. Let My people go. No conditions. No partial exits. No timelines. Negotiation would signal dependence on Pharaoh. Faith demands clarity.
The plagues escalate for the same reason. Each one strips Pharaoh of another illusion of control. Nature itself stops cooperating. His advisers concede defeat. His heart swings violently between fear and defiance. The back and forth is no longer ambiguous. It is exposed.
In the end, Pharaoh’s heart hardens completely. Not because God delights in destruction, but because the process has reached its conclusion. Negotiation has taught all it can teach.
Redemption does not arrive when Pharaoh agrees. It arrives when Israel moves.
The sea does not split because Pharaoh softens. It splits because Israel walks forward.
So should we ever negotiate with terrorists?
I would not recommend it. The story of Pharaoh answers the question easily enough. Some hearts will not soften. They calcify. And it is not our task to reform the conscience of the cruel. That responsibility belongs to them, and them alone. When negotiations replace moral clarity, they harden the very evil they hope to restrain.
The Exodus does not end with agreement, but with emunah, trust strong enough to step into the sea when no promise remains.
