“And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the Lord had said.”
But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had predicted. The magicians replicate the blood — presumably working with water that was not yet transformed, or possibly turning blood back to water and then re-transforming it. The replication is their last moment of apparent parity: they can match the blood, but the gnats in Exodus 8:18 will expose the limit of their arts. Pharaoh's hardness is reaffirmed, and the phrase just as the Lord had predicted appears again. The narrative insists that the outcome is not a surprise to anyone paying attention. God has been saying this would happen; it is happening. The pattern is established: sign, magicians' imitation, Pharaoh's hardness, divine prediction fulfilled. Each plague will follow the same arc until the arc breaks.
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