7
📚And the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God 📖 to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.2 📚You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land. 3 📚And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. 4 📚But Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that I may lay my hand on Egypt and bring out my armies, my people the children of Israel from the land of Egypt by great judgments. 5 📚And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them”.
7:3-5 Note at Ex 4:21. It is of the greatest possible importance that men learn of the one true God. If they refuse to learn in a gentle, humble, obedient way, He may teach them in harsher ways.⚜
6 📚And Moses and Aaron did so. They did just as the LORD commanded them. 7 📚And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
8 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
Aaron’s staff becomes a snake
9 📚“When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, ‘Perform a miracle for yourselves’, then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and throw it down before Pharaoh and it will become a snake.’ ”
7:9 Why would Pharaoh say such a thing? See note at v 11.⚜
10 📚And Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and they did just as the LORD had commanded. And Aaron threw his rod down before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a snake. 11 📚Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did the same thing with their magic spells.
7:11 Pharaoh, if he had so desired, could have at least tried to put Moses and Aaron to death when they first came in behalf of Israel. Instead, it appears that he wanted a contest. No doubt he thought that the gods of Egypt were more powerful than the God of Israel and that his magicians could show tricks as impressive as anything Moses could do. Two of Egypt’s magicians are named in 2 Tim 3:8-9. Some sorcerers and so-called “godmen” can display seeming wonders and show some sort of power, but it is not the power of the one true God. The Lord Jesus warned of false Christs and false prophets, followers of Satan, who would come and show great signs and wonders (see Matt 24:24-25; 2 Thess 2:8-10; Rev 13:13-15). Signs and wonders alone do not prove that the ones doing them are of God and speak the truth. They may be tricks of the magician’s art or displays of Satanic power.⚜
12 📚For they all threw down their rods and they became snakes, but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.
7:12 Here is the first indication to Pharaoh that Moses and Aaron were in touch with a greater power than Egypt’s magicians. Their snakes were symbols of Pharaoh himself (note at Ex 4:3-4). Actually, the magicians’ “rods” may have been rigid snakes which started to move when released. Perhaps this was not an uncommon trick. If those magicians actually performed miracles, the power by which they did them was the power of Satan (compare 2 Thess 2:9).⚜
13 📚And the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he did not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.
7:13 Pharaoh refused to admit defeat so quickly.⚜
God sends plagues on Egypt
14 📚And the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart has become hardened. He refuses to let the people go. 15 📚Go to Pharaoh in the morning. Then he goes down to the water, and you shall stand on the river’s bank waiting for his coming, and you shall take in your hand the rod that was turned into a snake. 16 📚And you shall say to him, ‘The LORD God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, Let my people go, so that they may serve me in the desert. Up until now you would not listen. 17 📚Thus says the LORD, You will know 📖 that I am the LORD by this: See, I will strike the water that is in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood. 18 📚And the fish that are in the river will die, and the river will stink, and the Egyptians will loathe drinking of the water of the river.’ ”
19 📚And the LORD spoke to Moses, “Say to Aaron, Take your rod and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, over their rivers, over their ponds, and over all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and so that there may be blood throughout the whole land of Egypt, both in wooden containers, and in stone containers”.
20 📚And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the LORD commanded. And he lifted up the rod and struck the water that was in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, and all the water that was in the river turned to blood. 21 📚And the fish that were in the river died, and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river. And there was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt.
7:19-21 The Egyptians considered the Nile River divine and worshiped it. Also every morning they bathed their idols in clean water. Now God begins His judgments against the gods of Egypt (Ex 12:12).⚜
22 📚And the magicians of Egypt did the same thing with their magic spells, and so Pharaoh’s heart was hardened; he did not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.
7:22 Is it possible for magicians to do such a thing? And was there any clear water left in the river for them to do so? The Nile is a flowing stream and its water was constantly being renewed from its source upstream. The magicians were either able to turn some of it into blood, or made it seem that they did so. In either case the result was the same – Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.
Observe that the magicians could not reverse the judgment of God on the waters of Egypt (or any of the judgments which follow); they could only try to imitate what Moses and Aaron did. If they had possessed great power, and had desired the good of the people, surely they would have tried to turn the blood back into clean water, and to deliver the land from the other plagues which followed. But they did not, and they could not.⚜
23 📚And Pharaoh turned and went into his house; he did not let his heart dwell on this either. 24 And all the Egyptians dug around the river for water to drink, for they could not drink of the water of the river.
Frogs
25 📚And seven days passed after the LORD had struck the river.