Moses was eighty years old and Aaron was eighty three when they did as the Lord said and make their demand on Pharaoh. The Lord told them when Pharaoh speaks to you show them your miracle of turning your rod into a serpent. Pharaoh setting out to prove he was superior called his wise men and sorcerers, and they followed suit and did the same thing.
Of course, God knew this would happen. But what we are not told here is Aaron actually performed that act and Pharaoh’s magicians only used illusion. And then, if you remember the story, Aaron’s serpent ate the magicians serpents. Though magicians can impress many people, God is proving that a magicians sleight of hand cannot compete with God’s true miracles. And what happened with that little demonstration? Why Pharaoh stiffened his heart. God said to Moses “Pharaoh is stubborn, he refuses to let the people go.”
We know Pharaoh went to the Nile every morning. We don’t know if he went to bathe or if he went to worship Hapi, the river God. The Egyptians believed it was Hapi who oversaw the annual flooding of the Nile which would deposit fertile soil on its banks. At this point it is interesting to note that the events preceding each of the first nine plagues follow a pattern.
The first nine plagues are divided into groups of three. Before the first, fourth, and seventh plague, which are blood, insects and hail, Moses is instructed to go in the morning and place himself where Pharaoh will be.
Before the second, fifth and eighth plagues, which are frogs, pestilence and locusts, Moses is instructed to go to Pharaoh’s palace. But it is Aaron who performs these plagues.
The third, sixth and tenth plagues strike without any warning. These plagues are lice, boils, and darkness.
All these plagues were not random. Great thought was put into how they were executed. When Moses went to the water, which was the Nile, he was to say, “God sent me to say, Let my people go, because you have paid no heed. God will demonstrate who He is”.
He will strike the water in the Nile with the rod, and it will be turned to blood. It is supposition that the first plague may be retribution for the killing of all newborn Hebrew males who had to be thrown in the Nile. With this one act of turning the Nile into blood all the fish in the Nile were killed, the Nile would stink and could not be consumed. But it wasn’t just the Nile that would turn to blood. The rivers, the canals, the ponds, all the bodies of water, and the water in vessels would all turn to blood.
But in order for this to happen Aaron had to hold his rod over all those waters. Of course that was impossible so there was a small amount of uncontaminated water left for the Egyptian Magicians to turn to blood when they replicated this trick. And how much sense did it make for the Egyptians magicians to destroy the small amount of pure water they had left? There was blood throughout the land of Egypt.
We know there are always skeptics that question whether God really did what we are told he did. So one of the logical explanations for the Nile being fouled was viewing he plague as an extreme intensification of natural phenomena. The explanation given for the first plague is that a period of heavy rainfall caused the river to become so full of purple bacteria and eroded red sediment that it appeared blood-like.
The purple bacteria that washed down into the river disturbed the oxygen balance and killed the fish, which in turn produced a foul stench. But let’s face it. Whatever your explanation, a miracle from God or a miraculous natural event. They are both miracles from God. I choose to believe it was God’s miracle and a sign to both the Hebrews and the Egyptians, and even to us, concerning God’s power.
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