Exodus7chapter 7

Exodus 7:8-10

The first sign given at the bush comes back. At 4:2-4 the rod became a serpent and Moses fled from it, and here Aaron casts it down before Pharaoh on command, though the Hebrew noun is not the one used at the bush. Exodus 4:3 has nachash, the ordinary word for a snake, while 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12 have tannin, a word used elsewhere of a great creature of the water. The same rod turns the river at verse 20, divides the sea at 14:16 and strikes the rock at 17:6.

The LORD expects Pharaoh to demand a proof, and He supplies it in advance. The staff is to become a serpent, the Hebrew tannin, a different word from the snake of 4:3. Albert Barnes notes that tannin covers river and sea creatures and is applied to the crocodile as a symbol of Egypt.

Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh: Moses and Aaron do exactly as commanded, and the sign is given before Pharaoh and his officials. Aaron handles the staff, in keeping with his role as the prophet of Moses. Ambrose of Milan read the staff that became a serpent as a figure of the Word made flesh, sent to destroy the poison of the serpent.

Exodus 7:11-12

Egypt's own experts match the sign, and this is the first of three stages the magicians pass through in the book. They duplicate the rod here, the blood at verse 22 and the frogs at 8:7, then they fail at the lice and tell Pharaoh This is the finger of God at 8:19, and by the boils at 9:11 they cannot stand before Moses because the boils are upon them. Aaron's rod swallows their rods, so the first scene is decided by which serpent eats the others. Spurgeon preached this verse as the power of Aaron's rod and refused to settle whether the magicians used sleight of hand or something worse, on the ground that the outcome is the same either way.

swallowed up the other staffs: The magicians match the first part of the sign, and then Aaron's staff swallows theirs, showing the LORD's power over Egypt's arts. Interpreters differ on how the magicians did it. Charles Spurgeon allowed either sleight of hand or demonic aid and left the question open, and Adam Clarke held that God permitted their skill so His superiority would be clear.

The KJV reads And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, which leaves the subject of the verb open, and the ASV renders the same clause And Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Adam Clarke argued that the Hebrew here is the identical construction the KJV translates as was hardened at verse 22, and that it should have been put the same way in both places. Any reading of the chapter that leans on this verse has to say that the translations differ. The closing clause, as the LORD had said, points back to the refusal foretold at verse 4.

The Hebrew word behind the English harden changes here. Verse 13 has chazaq and this verse has kabed, which carries the sense of heavy or dull, and qashah stands behind the same English elsewhere in the book, so no single Hebrew word runs through the nineteen statements. Clarke reads the heaviness as the condition of a man who takes no conviction from evidence however clear the light on it.

Exodus 7:15-16

Plague one opens the first of three triads, and the opening line is where the pattern shows: the first plague of each set is warned at the river in the morning, at 7:15, 8:20 and 9:13, the second is warned inside the palace, at 8:1, 9:1 and 10:1, and the third falls with no warning at all, at 8:16, 9:8 and 10:21. Verse 16 gives the demand in the form it keeps for the rest of the book, Let my people go, that they may serve me, which is release for a purpose rather than release on its own. That purpose clause is attached seven times, at 4:23, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3, and the Hebrew root inside it is the one Exodus 1:13 and 1:14 used five times over for the bondage.

Let My people go, so that they may worship Me: At the riverbank Moses repeats the demand of 5:1 in the LORD's name. The closing words, that Pharaoh has not listened until now, set the first plague as the answer to his refusal. Albert Barnes, on verse 15, suggests Pharaoh went to the Nile to worship it, which gave the plague on the river special force.

Exodus 7:17-18

The sign is aimed at Pharaoh's own question. He asked at 5:2 who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice, and the answer given here is in this thou shalt know that I am the LORD. What is struck is the Nile, which is where the Hebrew boys were ordered drowned at 1:22 and where the ark of bulrushes was laid at 2:3. Clarke gathers the traveller accounts of how good the water of the Nile was held to be, and that is what gives the loathing of verse 18 its weight.

The fish in the Nile will die: The LORD names three results in advance: dead fish, a stinking river and water the Egyptians cannot drink. The Nile was Egypt's drinking water and food supply, so the sign struck daily life. Adam Clarke cites a French writer's praise of the sweetness of Nile water to show how bitter the loss would be.

The stroke is widened past the river to the streams, the rivers, the ponds and the pools, and then to the blood standing in vessels of wood and vessels of stone. Aaron holds the rod through the first three plagues as he held it for the serpent, and from the boils at 9:10 onward Moses acts himself. Egypt lived on that water, and the verse leaves nothing holding water untouched.

Exodus 7:20-21

The third sign given at the bush arrives as the first plague. At 4:9 Moses was told to pour water from the river on the dry land and it would become blood, which was given then as a sign to Israel and is done now to the river itself in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants. Commentators divide over whether the water became blood or the appearance of blood, with Clarke holding the change real because the fish died and the river stank, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown leaving the question open on the ground that either was within God's power. The text reports the dead fish, the stench and the water no one could drink, and says nothing about the substance.

The fish in the Nile died: Each thing foretold in verse 18 comes to pass: the fish die, the river stinks, the water cannot be drunk, and blood fills the land. The fulfilment matches the word given beforehand, which marks the sign as the LORD's work. Albert Barnes notes that Egyptians lived largely on Nile fish, so a mass death of fish was a dreaded plague.

Exodus 7:22-23

The magicians match the plague, and Wesley notes what the match costs Egypt, since turning more water into blood while water is scarce helps nobody and proves only that they can do it. Undoing the plague would have answered Moses, and they do not undo it. The hardening is put in the plain passive here, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and verse 23 adds that he turned and went into his house and did not set his heart to this also.

did not take any of this to heart: Pharaoh turns away and goes home without taking the sign to heart. Verse 22 says his heart was hardened; here the refusal is his own act. Adam Clarke, on verse 13, reads the hardening as the effect of Pharaoh's own obstinacy, and John Wesley, on verse 22, says the magicians' copy gave him an excuse to set this sign aside.

Exodus 7:24-25

Egypt digs beside the Nile for water it can drink, and Henry reads the digging as mercy inside the judgment, since the people were not left to die of thirst for their king's obstinacy. The plague is given a length, seven days, which the text does for only one other of the nine, the three days of darkness at 10:22. Pharaoh has a week in which to answer and spends it in his house.

seven full days passed: The plague on the Nile lasted a full week after the LORD struck the river. The verse credits the stroke to the LORD, though Aaron held the staff. John Gill observes that Moses, Aaron and the rod were only instruments of almighty power, and Albert Barnes contrasts this week with the twenty days of the Nile's natural discoloration.