Then the Lord said to Moses: get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the river and say to him: this is what the Lord says — let my people go so that they may worship me. The fourth plague opens with the same pattern as the first: intercept Pharaoh at the Nile in the morning. The Nile visit recurs — perhaps religious, perhaps practical — and God uses it as a meeting point. The demand is unchanged: let my people go to worship me. Ten plagues will be needed to enforce one consistent demand, because Pharaoh's resistance is ten-fold. The repetition of the demand before each new plague is itself a form of testimony: God has been saying the same thing from the beginning, and every refusal adds to the indictment. Matthew 23:37 records Jesus grieving over Jerusalem: how often I have longed to gather your children — repetition in the face of refusal is the mark of patient love.

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