Remorse is a noble and sublime product of the free and unfettered human will. Once you cynically mock it, it doesn’t come easily anymore. And so it is with Pharaoh. He will never again see the truth of things as clearly as he does now. His actions in the wake of the seventh plague are fateful: he has started down a path that will be difficult, if not impossible, to depart from. In the great drama of the Exodus, he has chosen, in effect, no longer to be an actor, but a pawn.
