When Moses had first confronted Pharaoh with God’s command to let his people go, the king of Egypt responded with, “Who is the Lord?” Now, in Exodus 7:14-18, the Lord begins to answer the question that the king had assumed was simply rhetorical.
Recognize your Lord as judge. The Lord judges rebels who harden their hearts. The Lord has Moses and Aaron perform a preliminary sign for Pharaoh, throwing down the staff, and it becomes a snake. This is a different term than used when God had Moses throw down his staff in the wilderness: although it has a broader range of meaning, it may well mean snake here. The Egyptian magicians are able to imitate this miracle, but then Aaron’s staff swallowed up the others. The Lord is indicating that he is sovereign. Pharaoh, however, refuses to listen. He hardens his heart—and the Lord hardens it to display his power as the judge of the earth. Turning the water of the Nile to blood is the first of a series of nine plagues, to escalate to the final tenth plague that judges Egypt and releases God’s people. The Nile was critical to Egypt. Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh near the river, and its water turns to blood. Efforts to explain away this and the following miracles as coincidental natural events simply don’t fit the Biblical evidence. As even Pharaoh’s servants will later come to admit, this is the hand of God. But the miracle is more than evidence to Pharaoh and judgment against him. Continue reading “Do You Know God?”