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| 1 And Jehovah saith unto Moses, 'See, I have given thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother is thy prophet; |
Made thee a god – Elohim, mighty one, a name applied to Jehovah as well as to men. E68; R338:2, R421:3, R1410:3
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| 2 thou thou dost speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother doth speak unto Pharaoh, and he hath sent the sons of Israel out of his land. |
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| 3 'And I harden the heart of Pharaoh, and have multiplied My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt, |
Harden Pharaoh's heart – See comment on Exodus 4:21.
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| 4 and Pharaoh doth not hearken, and I have put My hand on Egypt, and have brought out My hosts, My people, the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments; |
By great judgments – The plagues were doubtless a full compensation of justice upon the Egyptians. R5271:3
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| 5 and the Egyptians have known that I [am] Jehovah, in My stretching out My hand against Egypt; and I have brought out the sons of Israel from their midst.' |
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| 6 And Moses doth Aaron also as Jehovah commanded them; so have they done; |
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| 7 and Moses [is] a son of eighty years, and Aaron [is] a son of eighty and three years, in their speaking unto Pharaoh. |
Fourscore – The fourscore, or twice forty, would bring us to 1878 in the antitype when Christ spake to Pharaoh (the world) by an act, in restoring Israel to favor. R181:6*
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| 8 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, |
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| 9 'When Pharaoh speaketh unto you, saying, Give for yourselves a wonder; then thou hast said unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast before Pharaoh it becometh a monster.' |
Shew a miracle – These three signs signified certain truths which, in the present time, will be convincing to the Lord's true people. R2910:5
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| 10 And Moses goeth in Aaron also unto Pharaoh, and they do so as Jehovah hath commanded; and Aaron casteth his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it becometh a monster. |
Became a serpent – Symbolizing that all the evil there is in the world is the result of God's having let go of his rod or authority temporarily. R4058:4
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| 11 And Pharaoh also calleth for wise men, and for sorcerers; and the scribes of Egypt, they also, with their flashings, do so, |
Then Pharaoh – Type of Satan. R5273:2, R5419:5, R2910:2; F458
And the sorcerers – Sorcery, witchcraft and enchantments are manifestations of Satan and of demons for the delusion of mankind. R2110:2, R2189:3
Magicians – Satan's mediums. R341:1*
The names of these magicians are given to us in 2 Tim. 3:8, where it is stated that, aresist the message of God. R3994:5, R4060:2, R2189:3
Of Egypt – Satan's dominion of sin and death. R5643:1, R5273:1; F458
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| 12 and they cast down each his rod, and they become monsters, and the rod of Aaron swalloweth their rods; |
They became serpents – Symbolizing the various views of the permission of evil which have been put forth by theologians of the past. R4060:4
Perhaps in some way the power of God will appear to be evil. Somehow God will permit the world, under the power of Satan, to have an hour of triumph during a great time of trouble. R5419:5
There are but two sources of occult power-divine and satanic. R5271:5
The Egyptian plagues were miraculous from one standpoint; not so from another. R5271:2
Duplicated under Satan's knowledge of natural laws. R1685:3
Some have surmised that they performed a trick common in India by hypnotizing a serpent. We are not sure, however, that the magicians did not do more than this. R5271:5
Satan's first agent was the serpent. R265:3
The powers of darkness have liberty and ability to perform wonders of certain kinds under certain circumstances. R2206:6
But Aaron's rod – The correct view on the permission of evil is such that it quite swallows up all the suggestions and theories of the past. R4060:4
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| 13 and the heart of Pharaoh is strong, and he hath not hearkened unto them, as Jehovah hath spoken. |
And he hardened – See comment on Exodus 4:21.
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| 14 And Jehovah saith unto Moses, 'The heart of Pharaoh hath been hard, he hath refused to send the people away; |
The people – In the antitype it will be the "groaning creation" that will be delivered. R2910:2
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| 15 go unto Pharaoh in the morning, lo, he is going out to the water, and thou hast stood to meet him by the edge of the River, and the rod which was turned to a serpent thou dost take in thy hand, |
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| 16 and thou hast said unto him: Jehovah, God of the Hebrews, hath sent me unto thee, saying, Send My people away, and they serve Me in the wilderness; and lo, thou hast not hearkened hitherto. |
Let my people go – Representing the call of the Christian Church to come out from the world and to engage in his worship. T25
In the wilderness – Condition of separation from the world. T70
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| 17 'Thus said Jehovah: By this thou knowest that I [am] Jehovah; lo, I am smiting with the rod which [is] in my hand, on the waters which [are] in the River, and they have been turned to blood, |
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| 18 and the fish that [are] in the River die, and the River hath stank, and the Egyptians have been wearied of drinking waters from the River.' |
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| 19 And Jehovah saith unto Moses, 'Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thy hand against the waters of Egypt, against their streams, against their rivers, and against their ponds, and against all their collections of waters; and they are blood and there hath been blood in all the land of Egypt, both in [vessels of] wood, and in [those of] stone.' |
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| 20 And Moses and Aaron do so, as Jehovah hath commanded, and he lifteth up [his hand] with the rod, and smiteth the waters which [are] in the River, before the eyes of Pharaoh, and before the eyes of his servants, and all the waters which [are] in the River are turned to blood, |
All the waters – The first three plagues were common to all in Egypt. The next six plagues affected only the Egyptians. R5640:3, R5272:2
The truth, as contained in millions of pages of tracts, poured upon the symbolic earth, society, liberally in many lands and in many languages. R4059:6
Were turned to blood – Perhaps it resulted from the inconceivably rapid growth of microscopic animals (infusoria) and minute cryptogamous plants of a red color. R3994:5, R5271:6
To society the truth seems repulsive, undesirable, bloody. They resent even the thought that the sacrifice for sins was the blood of Christ. R4060:1
Almost as miraculous as the turning of water into wine by our Lord at Cana. R5271:6
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| 21 and the fish which [is] in the River hath died, and the River stinketh, and the Egyptians have not been able to drink water from the River; and the blood is in all the land of Egypt. |
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| 22 And the scribes of Egypt do so with their flashings, and the heart of Pharaoh is strong, and he hath not hearkened unto them, as Jehovah hath spoken, |
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| 23 and Pharaoh turneth and goeth in unto his house, and hath not set his heart even to this; |
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| 24 and all the Egyptians seek water round about the river to drink, for they have not been able to drink of the waters of the River. |
The Egyptians digged around – The world (Christendom, Churchianity) seek for truth in various ways of their own. R4060:4
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| 25 And seven days are completed after Jehovah's smiting the River, |
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