Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 4:9

And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour [it] upon the dry [land]: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry [land].

9. The third sign, to be resorted to only if necessary. Water taker from the Nile, and poured upon the earth, to be turned into blood.

the river (twice)] the Nile (Heb. ye’r): see on Exo 1:22.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The river Nile, well known to Moses, and called so by way of eminency, as Euphrates also is. Shall become, Heb. shall be, even shall be, i.e. it shall assuredly be so.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

9. take of the water of theriverNile. Those miracles, two of which were wrought then, andthe third to be performed on his arrival in Goshen, were at firstdesigned to encourage him as satisfactory proofs of his divinemission, and to be repeated for the special confirmation of hisembassy before the Israelites.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs,…. Performed before their eyes; for these were done over again when Moses came into Egypt to the Israelites, and yet some of them might still remain unbelievers to his commission, and so to the voice of these signs, which loudly called for their faith:

neither hearken unto thy voice; affirming he came from God, and was sent to be the deliverer of them:

that thou shalt take of the water of the river; of the river Nile, when he should come into Egypt; wherefore Josephus q is mistaken when he intimates that this was done at the same time with the other signs; and was water he took near at hand and poured on the ground: but Philo r truly refers this to Egypt, where it was done, as it ought to be:

and pour [it] upon the dry land, and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land; by which it would appear how easily the Lord could destroy the land of Egypt, and make it a barren land, whose fertility was owing to the overflow of the river Nile as a means; and this would be a specimen also of what he would do hereafter, in turning the waters of the river into blood, thereby avenging the blood of innocent babes drowned there by the Egyptians.

q Antiqu. l. 2. c. 12. sect. 3. r De Vita Mosis, l. 1. p. 614.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(9) Shall become blood.The verb is repeated in the Hebrew, which intensifies the assertion. The English equivalent of the phrase used would be, shall assuredly become. The signs were, no doubt, selected primarily for facility of exhibition; but they may also have been intended to be significant. The change of a rod into a serpent showed that a feeble implement might become a power to chastise and to destroy. That of a healthy into a leprous hand, and the reverse, indicated that Mosess mission was both to punish and to save; while the change of water into blood suggestedalbeit vaguelythe conversion of that peace and prosperity, which Egypt was enjoying, into calamity, suffering, and bloodshed.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

9. The third sign symbolizes Jehovah’s power over Egypt and her gods . But for the Nile there would be no Egypt; and when Moses smote the water of the river he turned the very breast milk of Egypt to blood. And, besides, the Nile was a national god, for its fertilizing power was deemed to proceed from Osiris himself . Thus Jehovah smites Egypt’s life-giving god, who is stretched through the land a loathsome corpse .

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Third Sign – Water From The Nile Turned To Blood ( Exo 4:9 ).

This sign could not be enacted immediately as Moses was not near the Nile. It is, however, an indication by Yahweh that He will demonstrate His power over the gods of Egypt as soon as Moses arrives there. The Nile god was seen as one of Egypt’s greatest gods, responsible for much of its prosperity. If Yahweh could make him bleed He could do anything..

He is to take water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land (Exo 4:9 a).

The water taken from the Nile will become blood on the dry land (Exo 4:9 b).

Exo 4:9

“And it will happen that if they will not believe even these two signs, nor listen to your voice and accept it, that you will take of the water of the Nile and pour it on the dry land, and the water which you take out of the Nile will become blood on the dry land.”

Note the reversal of the order even in such a short sentence.

a If they will not believe his voice —

b He is to take of the water of the Nile —

c And pour it on the dry land

b And the water which he takes out of the Nile —

a Will become blood on the dry land.’

There is actually an interesting twofold pattern here. A combination of chiasmus, and of repetition (of ‘on the dry land’). Interesting examples appear of this in Numbers where a chiasmus also contains within its latter part a deliberate repetition (see Num 18:4; Num 18:7 within the chiasmus Num 18:1-7; and Num 18:23-24 within the chiasmus Num 18:21-24).

But what of those who will believe neither sign? God is aware of the deep unbelief of men and He was willing to make allowances for it. So He provided Moses with a third sign. Some will, of course, believe after the first sign by the controlling of the snake, others will believe after the second sign when the power of God to smite and heal has been revealed, but the third sign was for the severe doubters. Two signs confirm the certainty that God is at work (two is the number of witness). The third demonstrates a complete revelation (three is the number of completeness).

Moses was not called on to test this sign out there and then. There was no river available. But its significance was clear. Yahweh could make the powerful Nile god bleed. The water of the mighty Nile god, that water which was the very life of the people, could be turned by Him into blood. It was a symbol of what Yahweh could do to the Nile and to Egypt. It warned that if the Egyptians would not do what God demanded their future would be saturated in blood, for the Nile symbolised Egypt (Jer 46:8 compare Isa 7:18). He would ‘slay’ the Nile and with it many of the people of the Nile god who had claimed so many Israelite victims at their hands.

Note on the Possible Parallels Between Exodus 1-4 and Genesis 1-4.

If we were to draw attention to the striking elements in the early chapters of Genesis they would certainly include the river that went through Eden and watered it, (Gen 2:10-14 – which was like the Nile that went through Egypt and watered it), the snake (Genesis 3), the penalty of toil and of pain in childbirth resulting from disobedience (Gen 3:16-19), the murderer who fled into the ‘land of wandering (nod)’ (Gen 4:16), the mark placed on that murderer by God (Gen 4:15) and his building of a city (Gen 4:17), the emphasis on the inevitable death of all men (Genesis 5), the deliverance through the ark (Gen 6:14 to Gen 8:22), and the multiplication of the peoples (Genesis 10). It is surely too much of a coincidence that all these motifs also appear in Exodus 1-4.

The three ‘signs’ given to Moses possibly connect with the snake, the ‘sign’ of Cain, and the river which fed a fruitful land, all connected with their first traditions, while as we have seen earlier there has been an emphasis on the laborious toil of the people of Israel, the sad pain on their childbearing, their building of cities, deliverance of one through an ark, and the fleeing of a murderer into the wilderness. It is difficult in view of this to avoid the thought that the writer has the traditions behind Genesis 1-11 in his mind, forced on him by the remarkable parallels (history continually repeats itself through the ages). Add to this the comparative pictures of the rapid expansion of populations in Genesis 5, 10, 11 with those in Exodus 1 and the situation appears to be confirmed.

We can also note how the early chapters of Genesis also seem to underlie the distinctions between clean and unclean in Leviticus 11 (see our commentary on that chapter). The traditions of the early chapters of Genesis clearly lay at the root of the thinking of whoever wrote these words, as root ideas which are built into history.

End of note.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett