hardening someone's heart
Making someone unfeeling
To harden someone's heart is to make them less compassionate, more resistant to emotional appeals, or unwilling to change their position.
The phrase often implies that repeated disappointment or cruelty has made someone callous: Years of rejection hardened her heart.
In biblical usage, God hardens Pharaoh's heart, making him stubbornly refuse to free the Israelites.
- crueltyDeliberate harm-causing disposition
- heart of stoneTotal lack of compassion
- rigidityState of being unbending
- desensitizationReduced response over time
- callousnessCruel emotional indifference
selfishness · ruthlessness · manipulation · divine judgment · God's will · coldness · ice queen · estrangement · shutting out · sinfulness · indifference · emotional numbness · obstinacy · apathy · arrogance · conflict · immorality · betrayal