God's Hardening of Pharaoh

How should we understand God's hardening of a person like Pharaoh. What does God's hardening mean? It is not His infusing hardness into the heart of a sinner. It is a progressive just judgment in time and space, based upon His eternal decree concerning that particular person, whereby He gives that person over to the sinful thoughts and tendencies of their own heart, to exalt themselves, and to do their own will. He makes them hard in relation to Himself.