Bible Commentaries
Poor Man's Commentary
Exodus 7
CONTENTS
The Lord having now by his grace over-ruled all the objections of Moses, the man of God with Aaron his brother proceeds without further delay in the execution of their commission. This Chapter relates to us the event of Moses' second embassy unto Pharaoh. Moses demands, in the Lord's name, the freedom of Israel for the purpose of divine worship. Pharaoh again refuses. Moses, at the command of God, works a miracle by way of confirmation of the authority by which he acted. This proving ineffectual to subdue the heart of Pharaoh, Moses at God's command begins to chasten Egypt with plagues. He turns the waters of the river into blood, which is the first of the ten plagues with which the Lord visited Egypt, before the Israelites: deliverance is accomplished.
Exodus 7:1
Concerning this expression, I have made thee a god; consult Psalms 82:6-7. A plain proof this, in what a subordinate sense to that of the one true God this expression is intended. See John 10:34-36. The sense therefore is, I have endued thee with power as a magistrate, a prince, etc. Jeremiah 1:10.
Our dear Redeemer was but about 30 years of age when he entered upon his ministry, Luke 4:23.
It is remarkable that upon several occasions in scripture, for the confirmation of the faith and the confutation of error, the serpent is made use of, see Numbers 21:8. And it is yet more remarkable that this is expressly spoken of by the Redeemer himself as typical of his salvation. John 3:14.
The Reader for the proper apprehension of this and the following verse, would do well to consider that God sometimes in his providence permits events, which are not within the power or the province of the human mind to account for: whether the magicians did actually do what is here said, or whether they possessed the art to make the spectators think so, is not easy to determine. I think it is more than probable, that the Lord over-ruled those circumstances in order that his sovereignty might, by and by, the more fully appear. See very strikingly to this effect, Exodus 8:19.
This is the first of the ten plagues with which the Lord visited Egypt: and a most awful one it was. I would just make one observation upon it; namely, that it is remarkable, that as the first punishment for the deliverance of the Lord's people, which Moses wrought, was the converting water into blood: so the first miracle in the work of grace which the Lord Jesus accomplished, was the turning water into wine! All that comes by Moses' law is terror, but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ.
As the Israelites had been compelled by Pharaoh to seek straw where there was none, so the Egyptians are now punished in seeking water where there was none.
REFLECTIONS
Pause my soul over the perusal of this Chapter, and behold, in the history of the Egyptian monarch, the awful state of an hardened heart. And what were the calls of his magicians to counteract the sovereignty of God, but similar instances of the obduracy of the wicked in all ages, who aim to strengthen themselves against the Almighty, and run upon the thick bosses of his buckler!
Reader: do not overlook one sweet instruction in this Chapter. What will not the Lord do for his people? Rather than Israel shall be any longer oppressed, Egypt shall be destroyed, and the noblest of rivers turned into blood. Oh! may you and I be found among those who have the Lord for their portion, and then we shall have no cause to fear, though the earth be moved, and the hills carried into the midst of the sea. Dearest Jesus! undertake for me, for thou alone canst answer for me, O, Lord my God.
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