The Third Sign - Water From The Nile Turned To Blood (Exodus 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 (Exodus 4:9 a).
· The water taken from the Nile will become blood on the dry land (Exodus 4:9 b).
“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 Numbers 18:4; Numbers 18:7 within the chiasmus Numbers 18:1-7; and Numbers 18:23-24 within the chiasmus Numbers 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 (Jeremiah 46:8 compare Isaiah 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 Chapter s of Genesis they would certainly include the river that went through Eden and watered it, (Genesis 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 (Genesis 3:16-19), the murderer who fled into the ‘land of wandering (nod)' (Genesis 4:16), the mark placed on that murderer by God (Genesis 4:15) and his building of a city (Genesis 4:17), the emphasis on the inevitable death of all men (Genesis 5), the deliverance through the ark (Genesis 6:14 to Genesis 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; Genesis 5:11 with those in Exodus 1 and the situation appears to be confirmed.
We can also note how the early Chapter s 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 Chapter s 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.