Exodus 7:14-25

1°. Water turned into Blood (Exodus 7:14 a J; Exodus 7:15 b E r; Exodus 7:16 a J; Exodus 7:17 b, with the rod. hand, E; Exodus 7:17 c - Exodus 7:18 J; Exodus 7:19 a, commanded, P; Exodus 7:20 b, to servants, E; Exodus 7:20 c - Exodus 7:21 ab, J; Exodus 7:21 c - Exodus 7:22, P; Exodus 7:23 J). In Egypt not only prosperity, but life itself, was bound up with the Nile. Moses meets Pharaoh on his morning visit to the Nile (cf. Exodus 8:20), either for bathing (as Exodus 2:5) or worship, repeats the Divine demand, and announces the smiting of the Nile, by turning its waters into blood. Each year the water of the river becomes like blood at the time of the inundation (Sayce). The peculiarity in Ex. is that the water was rendered unwholesome, as it sometimes is just before the redness begins. In P all the water in the land takes the poisonous tinge: the irrigation canals (Exodus 7:9 mg.) and ponds or reservoirs being specially mentioned. The artificial character of P's representation is shown when, after the water has been reddened, the magicians can yet find water to prove their powers upon. The death of the fish would be a grave calamity, fish being a staple article of diet.

Exodus 7:15. the rod (E): is noted by the editor as that which was turned to a serpent (Exodus 4:3 J).

Exodus 7:17 b. The sentence about Yahweh's smiting is dislocated by the insertion of a scrap from the command to Moses in E (Exodus 7:15 b), with the rod that is in mine (altered from thine, yet spoiling the sense all the same) hand.

Exodus 7:20 b. and he lifted up: not Aaron (Exodus 7:20 a P) but Moses (E), for only the waters that were in the river were smitten.

Exodus 7:23. heart: in Heb. covers, and indeed often denotes, mental not emotional activity: render give his mind even to this.