“8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”
10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. 13 Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’”
19 The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over the streams and canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs’—and they will turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars.”
20 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt. 22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. 23 Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river.”
Imagine a group of children out by an electric fence. How many of them need to touch that fence for them all to learn a valuable lesson? All of them don’t need to touch it. Only one child needs to touch that fence for them all to learn why you don’t touch electric fences. Learning from someone else’s mistakes is a safe way to learn life lessons. That’s part of why the Spirit recorded what we will study today. He wants us to learn life lessons by watching Pharaoh make mistakes. You don’t need to touch the electric fence he touches. You don’t need to follow him to destruction. Watch Pharaoh. See what to avoid. Hardening your heart like Pharaoh to the Lord has dire consequences. Don’t do it; that’s the claim of this sermon: hardening your heart to the Lord has dire consequences. Don’t do it.
We will study this in two points. First: the sign of the snake. Second: the plague on the Nile. First, in verses 8-13, the sign of the snake. Second, in verses 14-24, the plague on the Nile.
We move toward these consequences in our first point: the sign of the snake. Last week Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh, “Let my people go” and it blew up in their faces. Pharaoh made life harder for the Lord’s people rather than easier to show them who was in charge. That intimidated the people. That intimidated Moses and Aaron. It didn’t intimidate the Lord.
The Lord is never intimidated. He isn’t intimidated by whatever understandably intimidates you or me. The Lord can do whatever He wants with whomever He wants whenever He wants however He wants. As we will see for weeks, Pharaoh was not okay with that. Are you okay with the fact that the Lord can do whatever He wants with whomever He wants whenever He wants however He wants? God’s sovereignty is one of the central realities of life. You can learn to go with its grain or spend your days and eternity fighting it like Pharaoh.
You see the sovereign power of God in verse 8, ‘The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle…’”’ The Lord didn’t simply foreknow that Pharaoh was going to say, “Perform a miracle.” The Lord was in charge of the fact that Pharaoh would say those words. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He will,” as Proverbs 21:1. Pharaoh will make real choices, but there is a will greater than his at work and so it is with all of us. We are truly responsible and God is totally sovereign. This compatibility is one of the themes of this first part of Exodus.
Pharaoh would want to see this miracle, in part, because he was tiring of these visits from Moses and Aaron. His request is something of a “show me something worth seeing or get out. Give me a reason to listen or leave.”
What’s fascinating is that Pharaoh will receive the miracle he requests, but will pay no attention. He will see the sign of the snake and pay no attention. He will see the Nile turn to blood and will pay no attention. He will see all the plagues and pay no attention. “This is usual with unbelievers,” says Calvin, “to demand proofs of God’s power, which they may still discredit.”
This is a reminder that not everyone is open to the Lord. Some, like Pharoah, ask for evidence about God not so they can believe but so they can reject. Pharaoh asks for proof of the Lord’s power. He receives it and rejects it. A man says, “Show me God cares!” and you tell them about the cross and rather than seeing the love of God in Jesus, he says, “I can’t believe in a God who would do that to His Son.” If someone doesn’t want to believe, any excuse will do. People will do what they will do.
Pharaoh received his sign. Aaron threw his staff down and it became a snake, which, as we saw, was a symbol of Egyptian power much like the bald eagle is a symbol of American power. The message with this sign is that the Lord, not Pharaoh, was king over Egypt—He can do what he wants with the snake. He can, as we will see in plague after plague, do whatever He wants with Egypt. It’s just as much His world today. “This is my Father’s world. O let me never forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.”
Pharaoh saw the power of God, but wasn’t impressed; you see part of why in verse 11, “Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts.” We don’t know how the magicians did this. It’s possible that they did it by sleight of hand like how magicians catch bullets. It’s also possible that the Egyptian magicians turned their staffs into snakes by demonic power. There were and are dark forces at work in this world. Moses’ point, though, in recording this isn’t to consider how the magicians did it. His point is that their power was nothing compared with the Lord’s; “Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.”
Anyone watching this unfold would be struck not by the skill of the Egyptian magicians but by the power of the Lord. You would have to blind to miss it and yet that’s exactly what happened. Pharaoh blinded himself so he would miss it; verse 13, “Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard, and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.”
Pharaoh refused to see the obvious. He found some other way to explain the work of God. You see the same with the Pharisees and Jesus. The Pharisees found some other way to explain how Jesus could cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead—even to the point of saying Jesus’ power was Satanic. It’s worth noting that Jesus says this is part of the unforgivable sin—blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—and this same denying the power of God is what hardens Pharaoh’s heart. Any excuse will do if that excuse gets you off the hook of believing and obeying and that’s what’s damning for Pharaoh and for everyone who refuses to believe that the Lord is who He is.
Humanity is not as open minded as we would like to think. We are able to blind ourselves to what’s blindingly obvious. That was true in Pharaoh’s day with the work of the Lord. That was true in the Pharisees’ day with the work of Jesus. That’s true today. Don’t blind yourself. Have a soft heart. Be open to doing what the Lord says and is doing. That’s what pleases Him. Faith is what pleases Him. That’s what we see with the sign of the snake. We now turn our attention to the Nile. That’s our second point: the plague on the Nile.
We as readers know that Pharaoh blinded himself to the obvious because we are told so. Moses and Aaron might not have known so at the time. They may have thought Pharaoh would be more reasonable after seeing a miracle. The Lord, however, knew better; verse 14, ‘Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go.”’
The Lord knows the heart. We don’t know what’s going on inside other people. We don’t know how they will respond to unexpected news or to not getting their way or to a call to obedience from God Himself. We don’t have anywhere near as comprehensive of an understanding of anyone as we assume; the fact that final judgment is in the Lord’s hands and not ours is a reminder of that. The Lord knows. The Lord knew Pharaoh’s heart.
The Lord was in charge of every aspect of this situation—both here in Exodus and in our lives. He makes that clear by publicly making the next move with Pharaoh. He tells Moses, “Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake.”
We don’t know why Pharaoh was going to the Nile. Maybe he was checking on a water situation. Maybe, like Moses’ adoptive mother, he was going to wash up. Maybe he had some sort of ceremony to attend. Whatever the reason, the Lord wanted Moses and Aaron waiting for him. The Lord wanted them to bring the staff that had turned into a snake. He wanted them waiting as a sign for Pharaoh that this Hebrew problem was not going away. The Lord gave Pharaoh no choice other than to deal with Him.
The Lord told Moses to repeat His call; “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert.” This word for “worship” is the same as the word for “serve” and some translations do read, “Let my people go, so that they may serve me in the desert.” The Hebrews would always serve somebody. They were currently serving Pharaoh. They were going to be freed from that service to serve the Lord. Everyone is going to serve somebody. Bob Dylan sang about that when he flirted with faith. “You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like to gamble; you might like to dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world. You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls. But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed, you’re gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
I don’t know who Bob Dylan would say he is serving today, but he is serving somebody. So are you. So am I. We were created to serve and it will either be the Lord or a far less compassionate, gracious master be it Pharaoh, public opinion, a lust, or anything else we put in God’s place. Moses’ later assistant Joshua got that message. That’s why he said, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
The Lord had now repeatedly told Pharaoh to let His people go but Pharoah wouldn’t listen; that had consequences. Refusing to listen to the Lord always has consequences; verse 16, “But until now you have not listened. This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’”
Pharaoh had scoffed at the Lord when He first heard of Him; “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” Pharaoh is now entering a crash course in who the Lord is—“By this you will know that I am the Lord.” This isn’t egomania on God’s part like Michael Jordan in The Last Dance—“oh, you think he’s a great defensive player? Okay, fine. I’m going to show you that he’s not.” The Lord showing Pharaoh who He is a way of confronting this king with reality. The Lord had knit Pharaoh together in his mother’s womb. The Lord was not only there for Pharaoh’s first steps, but He made those steps possible. Everything good that Pharaoh had ever enjoyed came from the Lord. The Lord chose for Pharaoh to exist in His universe for His purposes. Pharaoh had set himself against that. Pharaoh set himself against reality. The Lord is going to respond to this situation like any father would if his ten-year-old son came to him saying, “this is a real nice house you have here but it’s time for you and mom to move along.” That father would be insane to do anything other than put that boy in his place, and that’s what the Lord is doing with Pharaoh. Pharaoh will choose his response. You and I choose ours.
The Lord began to put Pharaoh in his place with this first plague. What we saw with the staff turning into a snake was a sign. The plagues are different. Only Pharaoh and his officials saw that sign. The plagues would affect every Egyptian. This was the first of ten plagues. There were likely ten of them because the Egyptian number system, like ours, was based on tens which likely stems from us having ten fingers. We teach kids to count from one to ten using their fingers and ten is the end. That’s how it went with the plagues. They would keep going until completion.
This first plague was all about the Nile. As we saw with the prophecy of this plague, the Nile was the life of Egypt. It was their source of strength. It made them prosperous. The river and irrigation meant there would always be food. Egypt was still exporting grain in Paul’s day. This plague struck at this power. American politicians are understandably concerned about Chinese hackers striking our nation’s tech industries. Those hackers are trying to turn the US’s strength against itself by disrupting our tech industries. That’s what the Lord was doing by turning the Nile into a liability.
The Lord turned the strength of Egypt against itself. The Nile and its water stored elsewhere turned to blood. Some scholars think that the Lord may have used a red-algae bloom to make the water undrinkable. When we lived in Minnesota, the algae blooms in the bay had an unbelievable stink to it. Whether the Nile was literal blood or was just red with algae like blood, it was a public health nightmare; “the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water,” as verse 21 put it. This was an emergency. It’s only the terror of the later plagues that make this one seem tame. That’s a reminder that it can always get worse if you want to continue on the road of disobedience.
The Lord told Moses and Aaron to begin this plague in Pharaoh’s presence; “He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood.” The Lord wanted Pharaoh to know that the connection between this meeting with Moses and the plague on the Nile was no coincidence. He wanted Pharoah to know that Egypt was in His hand, and He would do with it whatever He wanted. He wanted Pharaoh to learn that opposing Him would only end in trouble. Pharaoh will not learn. As with the snake, his magicians could do something similar. Pharaoh chalked it all up to a trick. He thought he was dealing with a nuisance when he dealt with Moses and Aaron. He didn’t yet recognize that he was dealing with the Lord. He didn’t yet recognize he was going to lose.
Now that might seem silly to us as readers. It’s obvious to us that Pharaoh is pitting himself against the Lord and it’s obvious that he’s going to lose. The fact of the matter is, though, that millions of people pit themselves against the Lord every day with no sense that they are going to lose. Jesus told a story about that—the people who build their house upon the sand. They, like Pharaoh, do it thinking that they are wise. It will end the way it ends for Pharaoh—in a great crash.
Watch Pharaoh. Watch him crash. Watch him touch the electric fence over and over again until it kills him. Learn from his mistakes. Don’t harden your heart to the Lord. It always leads to disaster. Amen.