Read with Me
Exodus 4:9 (HCSB)
And if they don’t believe even these two signs or listen to what you say, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.”
Listen with Me
God had already given Moses two amazing signs to do, not for the Pharaoh, but for the elders of Israel, to convince them that He had really appeared to Moses and that He truly was in the process of delivering them from their slavery. If the first two signs, changing his staff into a serpent and making his hand leprous and then healing it, didn’t convince them of those facts, God provided one more.
For this sign, Moses would have to go down to the Nile River and scoop up a container of water. Moses would then pour the water out onto the ground where it would turn to blood. And this would not just be some trick where something was put into the jar to turn the water reddish. God would turn the water into real, thick, clotting blood.
Moses would later perform the same sign for Pharaoh in the first plague, but at that time it would be on a much larger scale. He would turn the whole Nile River into blood. But for Pharaoh, the sign would have an additional significance. The Nile was actually considered a god by the people of Egypt, a personification, a physical manifestation of the god Hapi, who provided abundant crops for the Egyptians by making the Nile overflow its banks each year, depositing layers of fertile, silty soil across all the land adjacent to the river.
By turning the water of the Nile into blood, whether on the small scale as in Moses’ sign before the elders, or on the larger scale before Pharaoh, God was demonstrating His superiority over all the gods of Egypt, and his complete mastery over the vital lifeline of the whole nation.
Pray with Me
Father, I find all the layers that You put into everything You do fascinating. You do not just do miracles, every miracle is a sign that points beyond the event to You, and through which You teach us more about who You are and about Your superiority over anyone or anything else that might call itself a God. Thank You, Lord, for helping me to know You better every day. Amen.