Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Nile Turned to Blood
Exodus 7:14-25
14 Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn. He refuses to let the people go. · WEB
The first plague strikes the river Egypt worshiped and the river in which Hebrew infants were drowned.
Go to Pharaoh in the morning. Behold, he is going out to the water Exodus 7:15.
The king is intercepted at the riverbank, where he has business of his own; the morning attendance of Egypt's rulers at the Nile was a religious act. Moses is sent to meet him at the exact place where the claim to be disproved is being made.
The Nile was not a water supply. It was the country. Egypt has almost no rain, and the annual flood deposited the silt that made agriculture possible, so the river was worshiped, personified, and thanked. Striking it first is therefore not an arbitrary opening move. It is the announcement of a subject, and the subject is stated in advance: in this you shall know that I am Yahweh Exodus 7:17.
There is a second reason, and the narrative has already planted it. The last royal decree recorded before this is you shall cast every son who is born into the river Exodus 1:22. The river that swallowed Hebrew children is the first thing to be judged, and it is judged by being made to look like what was done in it.
All the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died. The river became foul Exodus 7:20–21.
Attempts to reduce this to a red algal bloom carried down from the highlands run into the details the text supplies rather than the ones it omits. The change happens on command, at a named moment, in the sight of witnesses; it extends to vessels of wood and... vessels of stone Exodus 7:19, which no flood deposit reaches; and it ends on a schedule, after seven days. A natural process that begins when a rod is raised and stops a week later is not less miraculous for having a mechanism.
The magicians of Egypt did the same thing with their enchantments Exodus 7:22.
The imitation is now openly absurd, and the narrative lets the absurdity stand without remarking on it. Every drop of water in Egypt has already been ruined; the court's answer is to ruin some more. Not one of the magicians can reverse anything, and it never seems to occur to anyone that this is the ability worth having. Counterfeit power can add to a disaster and cannot lift it — which is precisely the difference the plagues are designed to expose, and by the third sign the magicians themselves will say so.
Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he didn't even take this to heart Exodus 7:23.
The indifference is the most chilling line in the chapter, because of what surrounds it. All the Egyptians dug around the river for water to drink Exodus 7:24. His whole nation is on its knees in the mud along the bank, digging for something to give their children, and the king goes indoors. A hardening heart is not always dramatic. Frequently it looks like a man declining to be interested.
held with reason What this mark means