“Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.”
This is what the Lord says: by this you will know that I am the Lord — I will strike the water of the Nile with the staff in my hand, and it will be changed into blood. The first plague is announced with a stated purpose: you will know. The knowledge formula connects the Nile's transformation to the revelation of the divine identity. Blood in the Nile is not merely an ecological disaster; it is the refutation of the Nile's divinity in Egyptian religion. Revelation 16:3–4 depicts the seas and rivers turned to blood in eschatological judgment — the pattern of Exodus is read as the template for the final reckoning with powers that refuse to acknowledge God. The staff that Moses holds — the staff of God — is the same instrument. What Pharaoh refused to acknowledge in the court he will now be forced to see in the water.
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