And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river. The plague has practical human consequences beyond the religious and political. Ordinary Egyptians — not just Pharaoh and his court — are suffering. They are digging in the riverbank trying to find filtered water, trying to survive in a land whose primary resource has been made undrinkable. The plague hits at the level of daily survival: drinking water. Revelation 22:17 closes Scripture with the invitation: let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. Against the backdrop of Exodus 7:24, where water is unavailable to those under judgment, the gospel offer of living water in John 4:10 and 7:38 carries its full weight. Egypt digging for water in the bank of a blood-red river is the image of those who seek life in every direction except the source.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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