Exodus 7:14-24

Friends, welcome back.
On Wednesdays, we continue through Exodus.
Good to have you with us.
Thank you for joining us today,
Michael.
We kind of get into the really the core of the story.
Moses and Aaron have approached Pharaoh.
They have relayed God’s message.
They’ve shown Pharaoh the initial sign.
Pharaoh’s sorcerers were able to reproduce it,
and Pharaoh remains hardened of heart and unwilling to let them go.
So today, we get into the part of the story that
I think many people would know.
I think if you have any familiarity with Exodus,
you know that there were plagues.
There were these terrible things that were cast upon Egypt
to wear them down and to punish them and convince the Pharaoh that he should follow God’s instructions
and let the people go,
and today we get
the first plague.
So let me read this.
I’ll try to read it quickly.
Then we’ll discuss it.
The Lord said to Moses,
“Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.
He refuses to let the people go.
Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he’s going out to the water.
Stand by at the
water stand by at the river to meet him and take in your hand the staff that was turned into a snake.
Say to him,
‘The Lord,
the God of the Hebrews sent me to you to say,
‘Let my people go so that they
may worship me in the wilderness,
but until now you have not listened.’
Thus says the Lord,
‘By this you shall know I’m the Lord.
See with the staff that is in my hand I’ll strike the water
in the Nile, and it will be turned to blood.
The fish in the river shall die.
The river itself shall stink.
The Egyptians shall be unable to drink water from it.’
The Lord said to Moses,
‘Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff.
Stretch out your hand over the water.
Cover its rivers, its canals, its pond, its pools, all of the water,
so that they may become blood,
and there shall be
blood throughout the whole of Egypt,
even in the vessels of wood and the vessels of stone.’
Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded.” And I’m not going to read the rest of this,
but it happens as predicted.
I will jump down to verse 22.
“The magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts,
so Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened,
and he would not listen to them,
as the Lord said.
Pharaoh turned and went into the house,
and he did not take even this to heart.
And all the Egyptians had to dig along the Nile for water to drink,
and they could not drink the
water of the river.
Seven days passed
after the Lord had struck
the Nile.” So this is the first
of what are called the Ten Plagues.
The first is the turning of the Nile,
which is the lifeblood.
It is what allowed Egypt to function.
It waters crops.
It brings water.
It is no surprise,
it is no accident that Egypt develops along the Nile River.
It really is the heartbeat of that
area, and here God renders it unusable.
God turns the water into blood as Moses and Aaron
follow the Lord’s commands,
use the staff.
But then there’s this strange thing.
We saw this with the snake.
The magicians of Pharaoh are able to replicate this.
They take some water,
they turn it into blood as well,
or appear to turn it into blood if it was a trick.
And because of that,
Pharaoh is willing to live with this.
Pharaoh is unwilling to let the people go.
And so we see this pattern again.
God speaks.
Moses and Aaron obey.
A thing happens.
Pharaoh’s people replicate the thing,
and Pharaoh then is stubborn.
And Michael, this is going to happen a few more times,
though the magicians are going to drop out of the equation at some point.
Yeah, right.
So the pattern is set because of this conflict with God that’s arising.
But each
plague does come with its own kind of symbolism,
and in some ways we might even say meaning.
It’s striking here that the first plague strikes the Nile.
And I remind you that in chapter 1, verse 22,
Pharaoh makes the order that the firstborn son of the Israelite slave should be thrown
into the water.
The Nile becomes the source of the Israelite genocide.
And so much of this story
is told from the perspective of God bringing justice upon this overreaching power,
this human who is taken more than his allotment, the Pharaoh,
that it is striking that the first sign is that
very same water, the Nile, being turned to blood,
almost in some ways a symbolic representation of
the fact that this has been the place where blood has been taken,
where life has been snuffed out.
And it’s striking, we’re told here,
that this is the case not just in the Nile itself as if
it was only the river affected or some natural disaster could have caused it.
But we’re told here,
I’m looking at verse 19,
Clint,
its canals, its ponds, all of its pools of water,
even in vessels of wood and vessels of stone,
that’s the kind of thing.
There wasn’t a thing
that happened upstream that caused all of this.
There’s only one explanation for how this happened.
And in some ways, Clint,
the magician aspect of this story,
I want to be careful.
It’s not comedic relief because it’s a very serious story.
But there is a comedy in it,
the idea that because
they could reproduce some red in some water,
that that would in some way be the same thing by any
order of magnitude to all of the water of Egypt,
to the extent to which they’re digging new
holes to get clean water out of,
that the magicians are really,
in some ways they’re
cast here, I think, as very small.
There’s a slight,
at least ironic, if not comedic, element to that.
Yeah, and I also think,
Michael, it picks up on this theme of contest,
you know, that at least at this initial point,
Pharaoh is still trying to answer God.
And the sorcerers of Egypt
are trying to reproduce these acts.
They think of this as magic or trickery.
They think of Moses
as a sorcerer of sorts.
And it is not yet clear in the minds of everyone in the story that this is
none other than the Creator.
This is the God of Israel doing these things.
They are not tricks.
They are not abilities.
This is the power of a divine God focused against Egypt.
And, you know, I think that can get lost.
I do think, you know, there’s a sense in which
the story, we’re going to see these magicians for just a brief moment in the beginning of the story.
And I do think it’s kind of the story’s way of telling us how woefully above their pay grade
the rest of this story is.
I mean, okay, they can keep up for a little while.
They can do some
little things here and there.
But they are – we couldn’t even call them underdogs.
They simply
don’t matter.
They don’t belong here.
They do not have a place at this table.
And you said, Michael, I also want to – something I also want to comment on.
There are, of course, people who have read these stories and looked for some historical aspect to them.
Could something have happened to the river?
Could it have been a landslide?
Could it have been muddy water?
Could it have been red dirt?
Could it have been a meteor?
There are myriads of sort of guesses and
explanations offered as to how something like this could have actually happened.
I will just tell you that for purposes of our story and for the purposes of the Old Testament,
the Bible does not care about any of it.
The Bible is telling the story as the Bible wants
us to hear it.
The Bible is not interested in explaining it.
The only explanation the Bible
needs is that the power of God brought this about as it is written.
And now, if you want to see more
than that in it, that’s fine.
But I don’t think it’s fair to bring that to the text because the
has no interest in that.
The text is simply closed to that kind of speculation.
The text already told us what happened,
and it doesn’t care about other versions of the story.
How is now the question that this text cares about?
The author is not interested in sharing
with us how.
And I want to make that case maybe a little bit more firmly.
We do know from
archaeological evidence and studies that have been done extensively of Egyptian culture,
how important the Nile was.
You led with this,
Clint.
The Nile was not just a source of water
for the people of Egypt.
It was considered to be in many ways the lifeblood.
It was thought to be
a spiritual sort of sustenance,
a place of life.
And the pharaoh’s control of the Nile
was also thought to have spiritual overtones.
And so we might miss this as modern readers, but
as the text is written and as we see this confrontation happening between the God of Israel,
who can take the water source of mighty Egypt and turn it into blood and make it,
let’s make it clear,
it’s not saying like blood.
It’s not saying food coloring.
When it says blood,
we are to understand blood.
And this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen blood spilt in this
book.
I mean, there are obvious connections to the stuff that we’ve already had, chapter 122.
I think you could make an argument not for the Nile specifically,
but Moses shedding blood of the Egyptian.
I mean, there’s this there’s this overtone here of who commands life.
And ultimately Pharaoh has these under henchmen, you know,
strongest, brightest,
most powerful man in the
world has these magicians and they’re going to conjure up tricks.
But what we’re to understand
from this story is that the God of Israel does not resort to tricks.
The first parable is not some
miraculous sleight of hand.
You know, look here while I do another thing.
It’s a real,
honest,
life changing kind of destruction.
I mean, we see here that the fish in the river are dying.
I mean, there’s this sense that there’s a an abrupt halt to the order of normalcy and the common to be
expected thing happening and that there’s a new thing happening.
And yet,
you know, we could go on and on about this Clint,
this idea of the Pharaoh’s heart being hardened.
Once again, God is at work.
Pharaoh is unwilling to relent.
And because of that,
we know that there’s more
plagues to come.
But there is a direct affront happening here.
This is,
I suppose you might say
that the plagues get more serious as they go along,
but I would be a little remiss in saying
that this isn’t serious.
I mean, right from the start,
this is a shot across the bow at the very
center of Egyptian life and culture.
Yeah, I do think there’s symbolism in this story, Michael.
I mean,
this is directed at a broader context than just the Pharaoh.
In other words, it affects all of Egypt.
It affects their tributaries.
It affects the fish.
And what is this plague?
It is blood.
They literally have blood on their hands.
Where did the call go out to throw
Israelite boys in the river?
It went out to all of Egypt.
And now, all of Egypt has to deal with blood.
And I would also,
I don’t want to race ahead of the story,
but I would also point out
that we’re going to have blood in the first plague,
and we’re going to have blood in the last plague, and they function,
the blood functions perhaps differently.
But it matters.
This is a life and
death thing.
This is battle.
This blood is an important image in the context of this story,
because Pharaoh has attacked,
he has killed, he has made war against the people of God and thereby
called out God personally.
And this is a sign of things to come.
There are sometimes in the biblical studies,
especially Old Testament studies,
where there’s small details that may matter.
One of my commentaries points out that there is some argument
to be had that these wooden things, stone jars,
could be referencing ancient traditions of holding
water for the use of cleansing idols,
which there’s debate about.
But it’s interesting to look at
details like that and reflect if it’s true.
This then would also have the overtone of the very
sacred water preserved from the sacred river used to clean the sacred items is now stained with blood.
It is blood, which is a reflection,
once again, of the power of God against the powers of
Egypt.
If you’re willing to look at some of the nooks and crannies of these stories,
or even look at the detail of the staff,
right?
The same staff that turned into a snake is the same staff that
strikes the water.
We have this building image that the God of Israel is going to make good on
the promise to bring justice,
to bring the people out.
And mind you,
at the end of this first plague,
what we don’t see here,
at least I don’t believe,
correct me if I’m wrong, Clint,
is a specific reference to how the people of Israel get out completely scot-free.
I mean, we see in other plagues how accommodations are made for the nation of Israel.
But here,
I mean,
at least as I read it,
the whole Nile turns to blood.
So, I mean, there’s a sense in which
this starts off with an inescapable reality.
This has happened.
There’s no way around it.
The only way to get fresh water is to dig it up and to find a well that’s clean.
But when the people
push back and said, you know,
“Moses, what are you going to do?
Pharaoh’s coming after us.”
This is an unmistakable sign that God has shown up and there’s forces at play here beyond just mere human action.
And we’re only going to see that in spades as the plagues continue.
Yeah, and I would say, you know, Michael,
even if the commentary may be right about the
sort of idolatry and the function of water in that,
but even if it isn’t,
it’s a sign that
if you had water stored up, you’re not immune.
If you thought you had a way around this plague
because you had jars of water in your home,
it doesn’t matter that God is plaguing,
God is punishing all of Egypt and you can’t sort of get – there’s no loopholes in that.
You’re not going to get out of that easily.
We’ll continue with the plagues.
We probably won’t
do one at a time.
Maybe tomorrow we’ll get through a couple because they do become a little bit more
cyclical and I think maybe the story itself frontloads some of the details.
But we will continue through this part of the story and hope you can join us.
Grateful that you are with us today.
Thanks, friends.