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Exo_7:15; Exo_8:15
The future acts were to be of judgment, since the one merely demonstrative had been disregarded. Considering the estimation in which the river Nile was held by the Egyptians, who regarded it as a god, it is not without meaning that the first judgment smote that god, and rendered its most pleasant and salubrious waters noisome and pestiferous. Aaron, acting as usual for his brother, “Lifted up his rod and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned into blood, and the fish that was in the river died; and the Egyptians could not drink of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.” We scarcely suppose that there was actual blood, but that the water became red as blood, and acquired such properties as not only destroyed the fish, but caused the Egyptians to loathe to drink from that stream which they, not without reason, regarded as affording the most delicious water in the world. Nothing was better calculated to humble the pride of Egypt. However, the magicians tried to produce the same result, and so far succeeded as to assist the king in hardening his heart against conviction. One would think that they might much better have evinced their power by removing the plagues, than by attempting to increase them by their imitation. But this they could not do—and it better suited their policy to produce, on a small scale, something that looked like the real miracle. But that we know the extent to which confidence in persons blinds the eyes to their actions, it may seem amazing that the king found any satisfaction in their simulated operations—for they must necessarily have been on a small scale in comparison with the mighty deeds of the Hebrew brothers; and he was, in every instance, compelled to implore them for the removal of the plague. That the imitations of the Egyptian magicians were within a narrow circle, and although marvels to antiquity, were, for the most part, quite within the limits of modern science, is clear in every instance. In the present case it is distinctly stated that this blood-like water, filled the river, and consequently all the canals connected with it. This, indeed, is expressly stated, for the “streams” mentioned, besides the Nile, could be no other than these canals, seeing that Egypt has no other river than the Nile. This is further shown by the fact that the people could only obtain water fit for any use by digging for it. Now, the immense scale on which this miracle was performed, rendered any delusive imitation absolutely impossible—and, indeed, precluded even the attempt of any such imitation. The mass of waters being already changed, all that the wise men could have to practise their impostures upon, was a limited quantity obtained by digging along the river’s bank. That—with the preparation they had been enabled to make, in consequence of Moses and Aaron having threatened the act beforehand—they should be able, with a small quantity of water so obtained, and produced, perhaps, in a vessel, to exhibit, by some red infusion, a very humble copy of what had been done, is a statement which ought to occasion no surprise. Any chemist could do the same thing at this day.
In fact, we historically know that the ancients had the means of so dealing with colorless liquids, that they should shortly, on exposure to the air or light, assume the appearance of blood, or of other colors desired. A striking instance is that of Marcos, the leader of one of those sects which, in the earlier ages of the church, endeavored to amalgamate with their doctrines peculiar dogmas and rites of initiation. On one occasion, he filled wine-cups of transparent glass with colorless wine; during his prayer the fluid in one of these cups became blood red—in another, purple—and in a third, of an azure blue. Note: Epiphan. Contra Haeres, i. 24. At a later period a well might be seen in an Egyptian church, the waters of which, whenever they were placed in a lamp, became of a sanguine color. Note: Macrizi, cited by Quatremere, in Mem. sur l’Egypte, i. 419.
The continued obstinacy of the king occasioned the plague of frogs. These by no means agreeable animals came up, at the command of Aaron, from the river, “and covered the land of Egypt.” They were everywhere—in the king’s house, in his bed-chamber, in the houses of his servants, upon the persons of his people, in his very ovens and kneading-troughs, so that his very food was tainted with their abominable presence. The fact that these noxious vermin were thus prompted to forego their natural habits, and instead of confining themselves to the water and moist soils, to spread over the country and make their way into the most frequented and driest places, indicates the countless numbers in which they came forth; and this is still further confirmed by the immense heaps of their carcasses which eventually corrupted the land. There is always abundance of frogs in the Nile and its marshes, and here the miracle seems to have been in compelling them, at the appointed hour, to quit the localities best suited to their nature, in swarms, and extend themselves in all directions. An active Dutch imagination might work out for itself the probable details of such a visitation, and has done so in fact, in the highly singular prints of a work, in four folio volumes, which lies before us. Note: Mosaize Historic der Hebreuwse Kerke Amsterdam, 1700. Here one may see the people—men, women, and children—contending, with besom and staff, with fire and torch, against the monstrous nuisance. They are seen upon everything of food, which people bear along, and women cast them forth in dense masses from their water-vessels and their tubs. Some flee before them, some dance them under foot. Dogs seem inclined to contend with them, but flee astonished when the frogs spring strongly against them. But the storks and cranes are fluttering with gladness, and hold a mighty feast among themselves amid the general confusion and dismay.
Here the same remark applies as was made before. We are told that the magicians produced, in some way, the same apparent results; but it is clear that the most they could do, under the circumstances, when, in the precincts of Pharaoh’s court they pretended to copy the act of Moses, was to practise their imitation on a small space of ground, artificially cleared of the presence of the offensive reptiles for this very purpose. Precisely what they were undertaking to produce already existed in noxious abundance all around them. What they proposed to bring in was with difficulty kept out; and under these circumstances, ascribing very little indeed to their knowledge of pharmacy (the phrase of the Septuagint), to suppose them able to use some substance to attract into the vacant space, some specimens of an animal whose habits could not but be well known to them.
In this case also, a creature honored by the Egyptians was made the instrument of their affliction, and they were compelled to regard it with disgust and horror. In the Egyptian mythology the frog was an emblem of man in embryo. There was also a frog-headed god and goddess—the former supposed to be a form of Pthah, the creative power. The importance attached to the frog, in some parts of Egypt, is shown by its being embalmed and honored with sepulture in the tombs of Thebes.
In the plague of blood, water for drink might still be obtained with cost and labor, but from this plague of frogs there was no respite or relief. In their houses, in their beds, at their tables, they were incessantly infested by these hateful intruders, and whatever numbers of them were destroyed only infected the air by their stench, while their places were made good by fresh numbers, so that the very lives of the Egyptians became a weariness to them. No longer able to endure this, the king humbled himself to the brothers so far as to promise that, if they would intercede for the removal of the frogs, he would comply with their demand. This is a striking acknowledgment of the power by which he was afflicted, and may have been wrung from him to silence the gainsayers of later ages. To render the character of the visitation still more conclusively manifest, Moses allowed the king himself to name the time when the frogs should be removed. He named the morrow. It may be asked why he did not urge the instant removal of so great a nuisance? He probably thought some time was needed for the intercession of Moses and Aaron with God; or he, perhaps, cherished a latent hope, that the frogs might, meanwhile, take their departure, and that he might thus obtain some ground for distrust and disobedience. But it was not so. At the appointed hour, and not before, the frogs were—not sent back to the waters whence they came, but died away in all the places where they were found. Had they been simply driven off, it might have been urged that they had come and had withdrawn, in obedience to some natural instinct; but their sudden death closed the door, to that age and to this, against such attempts to weaken the force of this miracle.