Egypt Begins to Learn the Name It Dismissed

“See” answers Moses’ question of 6:30 about how Pharaoh will listen. The Egyptians thought of their king as a god; now a shepherd will stand before him as one. “Prophet” is navi, one who speaks for another, and this verse is the clearest definition of the word in the Old Testament.

The chain of 4:15–16 is restated in its working form. Moses speaks to Aaron, and Aaron speaks to Pharaoh. The verb for Pharaoh’s part is “send”, shalach, the same word as “let go” throughout the book: to let go is to send away.

“Harden” here is qashah, to make hard, severe or stubborn, a different verb from the chazaq of 4:21. “Multiply my signs” uses the same verb, ravah, as Israel’s multiplying in chapter 1: Pharaoh tried to stop one kind of multiplying and will face another.

“Mine armies” is the word tsava’ot, hosts, from which the title “LORD of hosts” comes. God calls Israel his army while Pharaoh has the chariots. “Great judgments” means acts of justice, sentences carried out, so the plagues are framed as verdicts, not displays.

The Egyptians, not only Israel, “shall know that I am the LORD”. The plagues are aimed at an audience. Variations of the phrase run through the plague chapters (8:10, 8:22, 9:14, 9:29), and it is said of Egypt one last time at the sea, in 14:4 and 14:18.

The doubling, “did as the LORD commanded them, so did they”, is emphatic in Hebrew, obedience stated and then stated again. A near twin of the phrase closes the making of the tabernacle in 39:32 and 40:16, so the book brackets the whole exodus between two acts of exact obedience.

Fourscore is eighty. Acts 7 divides Moses’ life into three forties: forty in Egypt, forty in Midian, forty in the wilderness. Deuteronomy 34:7 gives his age at death as 120. Aaron, the elder brother, stands in second place behind the younger, a pattern Genesis repeated many times.

A plain heading, but it introduces something new: a sign meant for Pharaoh rather than for Israel. The signs of chapter 4 were given to convince the elders; this one is aimed at the throne, and the instruction comes to both brothers because both will stand in the room.

“Shew a miracle for you” means prove yourselves. The word “miracle” is mofeth, a wonder or portent, often used of a sign that proves a prophet’s word. Moses is told what Pharaoh will ask before he asks it, so the test is already answered.

“Serpent” here is tannin, not the nachash of 4:3. Tannin is used of the great sea creatures in Genesis 1:21 and of Pharaoh himself in Ezekiel 29:3, “the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers”. The sign mocks the king in his own image.

Three titles: wise men, sorcerers (mekashefim, those who use spells) and magicians (chartummim, a word borrowed from Egyptian for priest-scribes skilled in ritual texts). “Enchantments” is lahatim, secret arts. 2 Timothy 3:8 names two of these men as Jannes and Jambres, from Jewish tradition.

“Swallowed up” is bala, the same verb the Song of Moses uses in 15:12 when the earth “swallowed them”. The Egyptian rods, symbols of authority, are consumed by the Hebrew rod, and Egypt’s army will be swallowed at the sea.

The King James says “he hardened”, but the Hebrew verb is intransitive: “Pharaoh’s heart was strong” or “grew hard”. No subject is named. “As the LORD had said” refers back to the warning of verse 3 and 4:21.

“Hardened” here is kaved, heavy, the third verb in the set. In Egyptian belief the heart of the dead was weighed on the scales against the feather of truth; a heavy heart was a guilty one. Whether the book intends that echo is debated, but Egyptian readers would have felt it.

Pharaoh goes out to the water in the morning, perhaps for a religious rite honouring the Nile or simply to bathe, as his daughter did in 2:5. “Against he come” means in time to meet him. Moses waits by the same river where he was once hidden.

“Hitherto thou wouldest not hear” is literally “until now you have not listened”, a warning that there is still time. The name “the God of the Hebrews” is used again, as in 5:3, since Pharaoh has already heard it once.

The speaker changes mid-sentence: “I am the LORD”, then “the rod that is in mine hand”. Moses holds the rod, but the LORD speaks as the one who strikes. The line blurs the servant and the one he serves on purpose.

“Lothe” is loathe: the Egyptians will be weary of trying to drink. The Nile was worshipped as the god Hapi, bringer of the annual flood, so the river’s ruin strikes at a deity and the land’s life together.

“Streams” are the Nile’s branches in the delta, “rivers” the canals, “ponds” the marshes and irrigation basins, and “pools” any gathering of water. “Vessels of wood” and “vessels of stone” may be water jars, or possibly wooden and stone objects used in temples.

This time the rod is lifted in full public view, before Pharaoh and his court, where the earlier sign was in the palace hall. Only the water “in the river” is named here, and verse 21 widens it to the whole land.

The details of verse 18 are ticked off as fulfilled one by one: fish died, river stank, Egyptians could not drink. The book records it this way so that the fulfilment can be checked against the warning, clause by clause.

The magicians “did so”, but they had to find water to change, and the blood was everywhere. Their success only doubles the problem. The phrase “as the LORD had said” closes the scene exactly as it closed verse 13.

“Set his heart to this” means paid no attention. Pharaoh turns and walks home, the picture of indifference. “This also” implies he dismissed the previous sign in the same way, and he will do so again.

Digging near the river let water seep through the sand, filtered clean. The people are left to solve the problem with their hands while the court does nothing. It is the ordinary Egyptians who suffer first in the plague account.

Seven days is the length of the plague, a full week. The number also marks the gap before the next warning. The Hebrew says “the LORD had smitten the river”, stating plainly who did it, when the magicians had muddied the question.