Context No. 176 of 4322 · Exodus

Exodus 7:14-19: in context

14The LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn. He refuses to let the people go. 15Go to Pharaoh in the morning. Behold, he is going out to the water. You shall stand by the river’s bank to meet him. You shall take the rod which was turned to a serpent in your hand. 16You shall tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. Behold, until now you haven’t listened.” 17The LORD says, “In this you shall know that I am the LORD. Behold: I will strike with the rod that is in my hand on the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. 18The fish that are in the river will die and the river will become foul. The Egyptians will loathe to drink water from the river.”’” 19The LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your rod, and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over all their ponds of water, that they may become blood. There will be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’”

Moses has been to Pharaoh once and been refused, and the Israelites' work has been made harder. This passage is the first plague being set up, and the staging is precise.

Go to Pharaoh in the morning, God says, as he is going out to the water, and stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him. Egyptian kings went to the river ceremonially, and the Nile was itself divine, the source of the country's life. The confrontation is placed at the water's edge at the hour the king comes to it.

The message repeats the demand, let my people go that they may serve me, and notes that until now you have not listened. Then the sign: the water of the Nile struck with the staff and turned to blood, the fish dying, the river stinking, so the Egyptians cannot drink from it. And the instruction widens to cover every reservoir in the country, the canals, the ponds, the pools, even the water in wooden buckets and stone jars. The plague reaches into the vessels standing in people's houses. The first thing struck is not the army or the palace but the water supply, the thing everyone touches daily. What am I depending on so constantly that I have stopped counting it as a dependency?

Sources

Exodus 7:15: meeting Pharaoh at the Nile in the morning, when he went out to the water
The Nile as a divine source of Egypt's life, the first target of the plagues
Exodus 7:19: the plague extended to canals, ponds, pools, and even wooden and stone vessels