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| Exodus 7:14-19 |
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Lesson # Exodus 7:14-19 Study Material - Exodus 7:14-19 You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth. Ex. 7:14-19 14 Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Pharaoh's heart is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to the water, and station yourself to meet him on the bank of the Nile; and you shall take in your hand the staff that was turned into a serpent. 16 And you will say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, 'Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness. But behold, you have not listened until now.' 17 'Thus says the LORD, 'By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, I will strike the water that is in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it shall be turned to blood. 18 And the fish that are in the Nile will die, and the Nile will become foul; and the Egyptians will find difficulty in drinking water from the Nile.' 19 Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over all their reservoirs of water, that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.' The Nile River is the supreme deity of Egypt. As with their various gods, there were rituals attended to in the worship of their gods. The Nile was no exception. Pharaoh was going to go down to the Nile to perform this repeated ritual. Moses would be able to station himself along the way and on the bank of the river at an appropriate place n order to meet Pharaoh yet again, and thus begin the first of the ten plagues. God gives Moses his instructions. Go to meet Pharaoh, make your demand as per prior demands, warn of the plague, then when Pharaoh refuses, execute the plague. The instructions were first given to Moses then to both Moses and Aaron. They would approach Pharaoh where Aaron would communicate the request and then the warning, then Moses would order the plague. That is the pattern that will occur for the next several plagues. God precedes all judgments with grace and warning. No one is inundated in judgment without proper and fair warning, and, given the full opportunity to comply with Gods commands. Pharaoh refuses. Here we have other words describing his refusal. The word we have already seen is 'qasha', to callous over, then there is used in verse 14, 'kabed', heavy, thick, slow, and finally in verse 14, 'chazaq', strengthen, seize, restrained, obstinate. All of these together portray the stubborn attitude of Pharaoh not to give in (an ego thing), regardless of the repercussions on his own people. Some people are like that in life. They stubbornly refuse to admit their wrong, even when they know that they are indeed wrong, and even when their refusal to change and be responsible will lead to hardship for those who are close to them, such as family, employees, acquaintances in a social setting, constituents in a political setting, and so forth. They hold on to their ego, which means more to them than those they are responsible for, rather than admitting defeat or simply being wrong. Parents battle with one another over various topics to the destruction of the children or their marriage, both of which are more important than either of the individual parents. Politicians will destroy a nation just to gain scratch their lust for power and position, or to remain in office with exaggerated or destructive promises, and so forth. Pharaoh will not wish to appear to be weak. In his own mind he has made this confrontation into a competition in which he perceives that hew must win in order to maintain the respect or loyalty of the people. Such is not the case, but stubborn people always see the opinions of others as attacks against their own self. Pharaoh is more impressed with that which he can see, the Nile River, than with that which he cannot see, God. So God will destroy the Nile right before his eyes, and at a time of year that cannot be explained by the natural seasons of the rising and falling of the river. The last plague the death of the first born will establish the Passover, which is held in the spring. That is the tenth plague. Moses is now 80 years old and will die at the age of 120, leaving 40 years in the desert after the exodus for the Israelites to do their wanderings. These plagues will occur over a very brief period, and during the winter months, when the natural comings and goings of insects, floods, storms, etc., do not generally occur. All the more reason to conclude that these plagues are from a higher power, rather than just unusual occurrences of nature. The first plague will turn the waters of Egypt into blood. Not just the coloring of something that looks like blood like the churned up red clay color of mud from flood waters, but of real and actual blood. Not only the river, but the streams, ponds, springs, and storage tanks on shelves inside homes. There will be nothing to drink, nothing to wash with for either physical hygiene or laundry. The fish will die, and the blood will putrefy, such that the stench will fill the air for some time. Their god will stink as the people will stink from lack of fresh water. The production of the Nile will drop to nothing as the Nile is incapable of providing unlimited resources. Nothing to eat (fish), and nothing to drink (water). The physical body cannot depend on the things of this world. There are too many limits in the world. But the soul can depend on the nourishment of Gods Word. That they might know, 'I Am', 'The Lord'. That God is the one and only God. There is no other. That God alone is eternal and thus can provide all things to all peoples, forever. God has no limits. Only man in his stubborn ways fails to see his own limitations and flaws. 
Now is the time to post a prayer. End Of Lesson Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth. |
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