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I. THE PLACE WHERE MOSES WAS TO MEET PHARAOH. Moses was not always to be put to it to find his entrance into the palace. God can arrange things so that Pharaoh shall come to meet him. The instructions given to Moses at once call to our minds how Pharaoh's daughter, eighty years before, had come down to the river to find and protect a helpless babe, and how that same babe - having passed through many chequered years, and many strange experiences at the hands both of God and men - has to meet with another Pharaoh. We are not told why Pharaoh went down to the water; it may have been to worship, for the Egyptians held the Nile in pious regard. But as the narrative says nothing on this point, we had better not assume it. It is sufficient to observe that Pharaoh was led down to the stream, to see it, the great benefactor of his land, turned into a curse (that is, if it was down to the Nile that he went. M. de Lesseps maintains that the city of the Pharaohs was not on the Nile, but on a tributary of it. See Hunter's 'Life of Lord Mayo,' vol. 1. p. 132).

II. THE DISTINCT WARNING GIVEN TO PHARAOH OF WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. This warning is not peculiar to the first plague. Warning is mentioned as having been given along with most of the others, and possibly it was given where it is not mentioned. But it is of course a thing to be specially noted that God did not begin this succession of disasters without due and solemn warning. Not that there was any formal appeal to Pharaoh. It rather seems to be taken for granted that an appeal will be of no use. But even though Pharaoh disregarded, it was a good thing to say beforehand what was about to happen. Moses himself, and Aaron, and all devout Israelites who had eyes to perceive, could thus see God's plan opening out more and more. All information is good that makes us feel how God is working upon an ascertained and settled plan.

III. THE PLAGUE ITSELF, Water is changed to blood. Two of the great elements that belong to life are thus put in sharp contrast. Water is an element scarcely less distributed than the air itself. It is one of those common blessings which are so common that we take them with no manner of doubt that we are perfectly sure of them, come what may. The importance of water is seen by nothing more than by the frequent references to it in Scripture as illustrative of spiritual blessings. There is water to drink; water to cleanse; water to fertilise vegetation. This element God takes, and all at once, over a wide stretch of territory, turns it to blood. Thus we see how he can make mere natural things a blessing or a curse according to his will. Water is a blessing, and blood a blessing, according to circumstances of time and place. There is suffering when blood is where water ought to be; and equally there is suffering if water is where blood ought to be. Here there was great suffering because blood was where water was meant to be. When the people came for water to drink, to cook, to wash, to water plants, they found only blood; and yet that very blood was the same in its composition with the liquid which flowed incessantly through their own bodies. Their health depended on its richness, its purity, and the regularity of its flow. On the other hand, consider the poor man who came to Christ to be cured of the dropsy (Luke 14:2). He had to complain, not that blood was where water ought to be, but that water was where blood ought to be. And here we claim that this miracle is not sufficiently explained by saying that the water was turned into something like blood. We must take it that there was a conversion of the water literally into blood. We are here just at the beginning of a critical and sublime exhibition of signs and wonders. Why, then, needlessly make admissions which will diminish the force of these? Granting the supernatural at all, let us be ready to grant it to the full where the statements of the text require it. The Being who changed a rod to a serpent could change, if need were, the waters of the whole globe into blood. We should be careful not to admit, without sufficient reason, anything to diminish the horrors of this plague. What a poor picture it presents to the imagination to think of streams stained with red earth or microscopic infusoria! How much more impressive in every way - how much more consistent with high conceptions of the anger of Jehovah, and of the punitive aspect of his power - to think of blood, real blood everywhere, "vast rolling streams, florid and high-coloured," and becoming after a while, a stagnating, clotting, putrescent mass. Very fitly does Matthew Henry remark on this plague: - "One of the first miracles Moses wrought was turning water into blood, but one of the first miracles our Lord Jesus wrought was turning water into wine; for the law was given by Moses, and it was a dispensation of death and terror; but grace and truth, which, like wine, make glad the heart, came by Jesus Christ."

IV. THE APPARENTLY SUCCESSFUL RIVALRY OF THE MAGICIANS. They also were able, or seemed to be able, to turn water into blood. There are, indeed, some difficulties in understanding the nature of their action here - whether it was mere trickery and deception, or whether God did allow water, as it passed through their hands, to be changed to blood. An understanding of these points is, however, of secondary importance. The thing of moment is to mark how unimpressed the magicians themselves seem to have been with the terrible spectacle presented to them. It was not for Pharaoh only to take heed to this river of blood; the intimation was for them also. But they clung, as privileged men almost always do cling, to their position and influence. Not only was Pharaoh's kingdom in danger, but their standing as the professed agents of supernatural powers. They went on, vainly contending against this new manifestation of power, though surely in their hearts they must have felt it was destined to prevail And their conduct was made worse by the fact that they were pursuing it in the midst of general suffering.

V. THE INTERVAL TO THE NEXT PLAGUE. What was this interval for? Surely to give Pharaoh time - time to consider the miracle in all its bearings, and get over the rashness and pride which prompted his first thoughts of continued resistance. We know not if, during these seven days, the river slowly returned to its natural state. Perhaps there was no sharp dividing line between the plagues; one may have come on as another faded away. Seven days, then, were given to Pharaoh to change his mind; but it is very hard for a man, even in seven days, to say he has been utterly wrong. And then there is the success of these magicians to keep him astray. Yet what was there in them to give satisfaction? It seemed they could do the same thing which Moses was doing, viz. change water into blood. If only they could have changed blood into water again, then they might have been of some use and comfort to Pharaoh. - Y.

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KJV: And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.

WEB: Yahweh said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is stubborn. He refuses to let the people go.