Digging for Water

Digging for Water

Exodus 7:14 – Then the LORD told Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hard. He has refused to let the people go. 15 – Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he’s going down to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile River and meet him. Be sure to take with you the staff that was turned into a snake.

Verse 16 – Then say to him, ‘The LORD God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you. He says, “Let my people go so they may serve me in the desert, but until now you haven’t obeyed.’” 17 – “’This is what the LORD says: “This is how you’ll know that I am the LORD: Right now I’m going to strike the water of the Nile River with the staff that’s in my hand, and it will be turned to blood.

Verse 18 – The fish in the Nile River will die and the river will stink. The Egyptians will be unable to drink water from the Nile River.””

When Aaron raised his staff and did as the Lord commanded, all the water in Egypt – the Nile River, other rivers, ponds, reservoirs, wood and stone containers with water in it – turned to blood.

The fish died, the river stank. The Egyptians could no longer drink the water from the Nile and there was blood everywhere in Egypt.

Everywhere there was water from the Nile – there was now blood. The Nile which was believed to contain the waters of life, now contained blood as if drained from everything that had ever perished in those great waters.

God revealed to the Pharaoh and all Egypt that true life does not come from the waters of the Nile. True life comes from God.

Remember what Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4:13, 14? – “Everyone who drinks this water will become thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never become thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become a well of water for him, springing up to eternal life.”

All attempts at finding life through means other than God will end in death. God turning the Nile into blood was graphic evidence of that very fact.

Exodus 7:22 – But the Egyptian magicians did the same thing with their secret arts. Pharaoh’s heart was stubborn, and he did not listen to them, just as the LORD had said. 23 – Then Pharaoh turned away, went to his palace, and paid no attention to any of this. 24 – All the Egyptians dug around the Nile River for water to drink because they could not drink from the water in the Nile River.

Let us not turn away from God and seek for sources of life and happiness elsewhere – all such endeavors will end in disappointment and death.

Let us “seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous person his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, so he’ll have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he’ll pardon abundantly.” – Isaiah 55:6, 7.