Exodus 7

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Moses as God to Pharaoh

¹ Yahweh said to Moses, "See, I have made you as Elohim to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. ² You shall speak all that I command you, and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. ³ But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and I will multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you, but I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the children of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments. ⁵ And the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh, when I stretch out My hand over Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them." ⁶ So Moses and Aaron did it; as Yahweh commanded them, so they did. ⁷ Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Aaron's staff becomes a serpent

⁸ Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ⁹ "When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, 'Show a wonder for yourselves,' then you shall say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.'" ¹⁰ So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and did just as Yahweh had commanded. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. ¹¹ Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers, and they too, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts. ¹² For each one threw down his staff, and they became serpents; but Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. ¹³ Yet Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not listen to them, as Yahweh had said.

Water turned to blood

¹⁴ Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is heavy; 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 take in your hand the staff that was turned into a serpent. ¹⁶ And you shall say to him, 'Yahweh, the Elohim of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness." But see, until now you have not listened. ¹⁷ Thus says Yahweh: "By this you shall know that I am Yahweh: see, 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 The fish that are in the Nile shall die, and the Nile shall stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary trying to drink water from the Nile."'"

¹⁹ Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their canals, over their pools, and over all their reservoirs of water, so 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.'" ²⁰ Moses and Aaron did so, as Yahweh commanded. He lifted up the staff and struck the water that was in the Nile, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, and all the water that was in the Nile was turned to blood. ²¹ The fish that were in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. ²² But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not listen to them, as Yahweh had said. ²³ Then Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not set his heart even to this. ²⁴ And all the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink of the water of the Nile.

²⁵ Seven days were fulfilled after Yahweh had struck the Nile.

Notes

• 7:9 "Serpent" here is tannin, not the word nachash used for the sign of Moses' staff in 4:3. Tannin can mean a great serpent or a creature of the waters, and Ezekiel uses it as a picture of Pharaoh himself, "the great monster that lies in the midst of his rivers" (Ezekiel 29:3).
• 7:11 "Magicians" is chartummim, the word used of the experts Pharaoh called in Joseph's day (Genesis 41:8), and "secret arts" is literally "their secret things," their spells. Paul names two of these men, Jannes and Jambres, who "opposed Moses" (2 Timothy 3:8); the names were known in Jewish tradition of the time, and a text also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Damascus Document, speaks of "Yohanah and his brother" (CD 5:18-19), whom scholars identify with Jannes and Jambres.
• 7:13 Three Hebrew verbs describe Pharaoh's heart: chazaq, "to be or make strong, firm" (here "grew hard"); qashah, "to be or make hard, stubborn" (verse 3); and kaved, "to be or make heavy" (verse 14). The TRB translates chazaq and qashah as "harden" and keep kaved as "heavy," the same word used for the "heavy" plagues that follow (8:24; 9:3, 18); in Hebrew the heart, lev, is the seat of thought and will, so a hard or heavy heart is a mind that will not yield.
• 7:16 "Serve" is avad, which means both to work and to worship; the same word describes Israel's forced labor for Egypt (6:5). The question behind the plagues is whom Israel will serve, Pharaoh or Yahweh.
• 7:17 The Nile was Egypt's life, and its yearly flood was honored as the god Hapi. Many have noted the justice of this first plague: the river into which Hebrew baby boys had been thrown (1:22) now runs with blood, as the angel says of the waters turned to blood in Revelation, "they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink" (Revelation 16:6).

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