The First Plague

Well, this morning we complete Chapter 7 as we begin the first of these next 10 plagues, which will take us up through the Passover of Chapter 12 and then shortly after the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies in Chapters 14 and 15.

So as we complete Chapter 7 and as we launch into the formal beginning of the plague narrative proper, I want to give some sort of prefatory comments about how I'm hoping to handle these 10 plagues. I'm not going to spend too much time this morning speaking to the structure of the plagues.

In fact, that'll be something that we will appreciate a little bit as we move forward. I don't think it's helpful ultimately to try to find some division. There's too many reasons not to divide it cleanly and neatly.

Some argue that the 10 plagues can be divided as a series of three triads, so a series of three threes plus the final plague as a sort of standalone or the sort of finale after these triads. And there's certainly something to say about the grouping of threes.

We have a pattern of a demand being issued twice with each plague and then the third time there's no demand issued. The plague is almost a capstone. So you get a sense that things are happening in threes.

Others see that there's sort of a split down the middle between the fifth and the tenth plague. So you have two sets of five. A death of the firstborn of the cattle of the Egyptians is the fifth plague and the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt is the tenth plague.

I don't think ultimately it's helpful whether we structure it as a series of three or five. There's a parallel between chapters seven and nine. There's an inclusio between the first and the ninth plague.

There's connections at every level. And for that reason, as we work through the 10 plagues, I'm only going to highlight certain features or connections or parallels as they come to us. I'm not going to force some external organization upon the 10 plagues.

Now there is a lot to say when we include Psalm 78 or Psalm 105 or Revelation 16 and even those things we'll take note as we work through the text. We want to appreciate not only what Moses records here in Exodus, but how other readers of scripture inspired by the Spirit of God have understood the events of the Exodus plagues as well, not least the Apostle John.

This morning, as we close out chapter seven, we'll do so in three steps. So in verses 14 to 18, we see the word of the plague. In verses 19 to 21, we see the act of the plague. And then verses 22 through 25, the ignorance of the plague, essentially Pharaoh's ignorant response to the plague.

The Word of the Plague and Pharaoh's Hardened Heart

So let's begin with the word of the plague, Exodus 7 beginning in verse 14. So the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hard. He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning when he goes out to the water and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him.

And the rod which was turned to a serpent you shall take in your hand. And you shall say to him, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you saying, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness.

But indeed, until now you would not hear. Thus says the Lord. By this you shall know that I am the Lord. Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand and they shall be turned to blood.

And the fish that are in the river shall die and the river shall stink and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river. The first thing we read in this particular section is that Pharaoh's heart is hard.

That we of course saw last week when we considered the judicial hardening of God. So this is not some new announcement. We could almost understand it as Pharaoh's heart remains hard. Pharaoh's heart is now heavy.

God's hardening touch has already met Pharaoh's heart even before his plaguing touch will touch the river. And of course we see in a more dynamic way even here how Pharaoh becomes responsible for the condition of his heart.

That's something we'll appreciate chapter by chapter up until Pharaoh's destruction. Pharaoh's heart is hardened by the judicial hand of God and yet Pharaoh has no excuse. He cannot blame God though he cannot run nor will against the hand of God and we'll see exactly why chapter by chapter even here at the end of chapter 7.

Pharaoh is responsible for the condition of his own heart. There is no excuse to be laid at the feet of God. Neither can God be understood as the author of evil. What is Pharaoh's heart? It speaks to Pharaoh's whole being.

Speaks to Pharaoh's will. Pharaoh's mindset. Speaks to Pharaoh's desire. Here it speaks to Pharaoh's character.

It speaks to Pharaoh's soul.

That's what the heart is. From it all the issues of Pharaoh's life flow. From your heart all the issues of your life flow. Your heart speaks to your character. Your heart speaks to your soul. Your heart speaks to your will and your desire.

So we see a hardening of all these very things. Of his character, of his desire, of his sympathy, of his empathy. All of these things being hardened by his own sinful rebellion against the Word of God.

Now with the beginning of this we are reminded again that God is hardening Pharaoh for the sake of displaying through Pharaoh his divine power. Remember we saw that last week in Romans 9. For this very reason I have raised you up that I might show my power in you.

So with that the Lord gives this first instruction to Moses. Moses is to go to the very banks of the Nile River and intercept Pharaoh and his retinue, as it were, as they come down the river. John Gill in his commentary points out, Abimezra, an ancient scribe, thinks this was a custom of the Pharaohs, especially in the summer months of June and July when the river would increase and almost like gauging the groundhog to understand the coming of spring, they would go and gauge the levels of the Nile to think through what the fruitfulness of the season may bring.

Or else, Gill writes, he went to worship the rising sun or the Nile or pay morning devotions to his gods. And my answer as the famous Ortega commercial asks, why not both? He's going not only to boast and inspect the fertility of the river, but also to pay homage to the god of the river.

Also pay homage to the sun god and all the chief gods in the pantheon of the Egyptian empire. Of course, the true greatest gods are the god of the sun and the god of the Nile. In Egyptian understanding, this was their sustenance.

And so the god of the sun, Ra, and the god of the Nile, and in fact, many of the Egyptian gods, as I'll explain later on, had a lot to do with the Nile and their religious mythology. Of course, these are all idols that God in bringing plagues is seeking to expose and destroy.

His claim as the one true god over against the false gods of the Egyptian empire. He's, of course, by that exposing idolatrous worship, which ultimately is always worship of the serpent, even when the idol is the serpent.

But all idolatry is serpentine, satanic worship. And so men don't see it in this way, but in the Lord's eyes, there's a way of worshiping money. You worship the idol of money. And sometimes that idol has a name.

Other times it's not named in our modern context, but it's all an idolatrous form of robbing God of his glory, giving glory to that which does not deserve glory, giving glory ultimately to the evil one.

We'll see this again as we work through step by step how God is laying a claim against the gods of Egypt. God is exposing the false worship of the Egyptians over against He, the creator and sovereign God.

But also, God is exposing the strength, the pride, the arrogance, the might of the Egyptian empire. All of this comes down in the confrontation of divine judgment. Notice, this is an aside, but notice, because I love this.

We read, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you. God doesn't say to Moses and Aaron, go and confront Pharaoh. And now they have to trudge up to Pharaoh and they have to somehow find a way to get that conversation going.

God gives them everything they need to know. Go to Pharaoh and say this, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you. It's a passive construction. You go with my name in your mouth. You go with my sending instructions.

That's why you're going. That's very helpful, I think, to Christians. Sometimes we receive people. Sometimes people are put upon our path, maybe not on the banks of the Nile, but in the aisles of Walmart or what have you.

Sometimes we even feel that prompting, that urge to find a way to speak of the Lord, but we don't even really know where to start. So we just start kind of, how are the Celtics doing? You think they're gonna pull out game seven?

And God, no, how am I gonna get that to the Lord? Oh, well, Celtics, symbol of luck. And well, I don't really believe in luck.

I don't know about you.

Do you believe? I believe in sovereignty. You look for some glimmer in the eye. Or someone you're talking to, and for 15 minutes you've been going in circles. There's no in road. They're playing zone defense.

You can't get that conversation to things of the Lord until they say, well, have a blessed day.

And you're like, oh, a Christian.

Here in New England, that's like automatic Christian, right? Don't you love that God says, you go and tell them that I have sent you. And if we were to think this way and approach people in this way, so many of our anxieties and frustrations would melt away.

If we would just go and understand, ultimately, the Lord has sent us. It's the beginning of having some nerve, some confidence before levels of power even. The Lord has made it clear in his word, and I'm here to represent that word.

I'm here, in some ways, I've been sent to make this plain to you. This is what the Lord has said. To almost remove ourselves out of the equation so that we are simply vessels. We are simply passageways for God to send us through God's word to get to ears and hearts.

And the more we can relate to that and think about that, I think the more effective we will be in our various encounters. Certainly, as many of us are considering ways that we can address the lesser magistrate and the greater magistrate with him, we need to be understanding this logic.

The Lord God has sent us. The Lord God has put his word in our mouths. The Lord God has something to be known and to be heard. So we don't need to find ways to relate, ways to level, very neat, little, interesting, strategic milestones along the way.

We can just put things out there. This is what the Lord God has said. This is what I believe. For now, this is the last word that Pharaoh will hear from the Lord until chapter 10, verses one and two. And there's a lot of plagues between this first plague and chapter 10, verses one and two.

Three, to be exact. So Pharaoh looks upon the Nile River as the very source of Egypt's life, the very source of his power, the very boast of his glory, but the God of glory is about to make this idolatrous boast the very stench in the land.

All that Pharaoh would enrobe himself with as his majesty will now become the very plight and the very plague upon his empire. And please be reminded, God is the same yesterday, today and forever. This is not the Old Testament God who was very vindictive and judgmental and thankfully we have a grandfather like God who winks at our idolatrousness in our nation.

No, no, no.

All of a sudden God doesn't say, well, I used to really be concerned about idolatry and arrogance and a rejection of the creator God and a refusal of his purpose for creation and redemption, but now I'm kind of okay with it all.

Any nation can do as they see fit.

No, no, no.

What we see here is the God who has never changed, the God who has no shadow of turning within him, bringing judgment upon the very source of idolatry in a nation, exposing that great wisdom and might and powerful claim to be folly and foolishness and vanity.

He's undermining the very core of Egyptian strength. Do you not think he will do that to a nation like ours? Do we not see throughout the annals of history that God has always done this to empires, going to the very core of their strength, exposing their folly and idolatry and bringing them to nothing?

Moving forward, the Lord reveals two specific purposes. First, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness and by this you shall know that I am the Lord. So first, this desire for God to be served and then secondly, for God to be known.

And of course, this is not a matter of order but sort of a both and. God is to be known and served. God is to be served and known. This is part of the reason he is bringing the judgment upon the land.

Now this is given as an ultimatum. This is in the form of a demand, but we'll notice there is no demand because there's no condition attached to it. This is more of an announcement than an ask. The ask was already there in chapter five.

The ask was already there in the first half of chapter seven. This is not God's demand upon Pharaoh as if Pharaoh has any condition upon him to turn back what's coming. But it's given in the form of an ultimatum.

And the verb here is different than we've seen. It's not that they'll go feast in the wilderness, it's that they'll go serve in the wilderness and here we have that ironic wordplay with this word in Hebrew, ebed, which can be translated serve in this context.

Slaves serve, they ebed, but worshipers ebed also, they worship. So the same word translated as serve is translated elsewhere as worship. And here we see some of the beauty of Hebrew narrative. The slaves had been ruthlessly called to serve Pharaoh as a harsh taskmaster, and yet God wants them to serve him.

And what's that service gonna look like? Worship, freedom, liberated worship. The same word pointing to two completely different realities. This points to the fact that our very purpose in life is to serve God.

As the first catechism question puts it for the Presbyterians, the second for the Baptists, as I've been reminded. Our great purpose in life is to serve God in this very way, to worship Him. To worship God is to serve Him.

To serve God is to worship Him. That's something that involves every aspect of our lives. It involves our hearts and we already said, the heart speaks to the total reality of our life. This is why we were made.

This is wherein our chief joy rests. To serve any other master is to lead to servitude, self-denigration, self-depravity. To serve any other master leads to bondage, into misery. That's what service to Pharaoh looks like.

That's what worship of Pharaoh looks like. That's what worship of idols in your life looks like. Sure, it offers some semblance of security, some place of belonging, but at the end, there's only misery.

But when you serve rightly, when you worship the right master, there you find the chief joy. There you find your very reason for being, the reason for everything that is, that God may be glorified by all and in all.

So it points out that this whole storyline of Exodus has this concern at the very heart. Going back to the very beginning of Genesis 1 and 2, God as creator being glorified in the midst of a redeemed creation.

God dwelling with redeemed humanity. That's the end of Exodus. God tabernacling with his people. Not saved to do as they please. Not brought out of Egyptian bondage and then they just take a beeline and say, well, now we can finally get on with the things that we've always wanted to do that we couldn't do when we were slaves.

No, now they're slaves of righteousness. Now they serve a new master. Now they've been yoked to the one who loves them and who saved them. Therefore, their whole lives are put on a different track that is still not their own.

Yet that track is a line filled with blessedness and peace. And so it is for the Christian. Not only is Pharaoh to know the Lord through these signs, but the children of God are to know the Lord.

Through these signs.

Remember where we left off the people of God. Moses had done some of the introductory signs and then we saw the Hebrew foreman as the labor increased under the heavy hand of Pharaoh cry out against Moses.

They rejected the word of God. Just like Pharaoh's rejecting the word of God. And so Moses, of course, as we entered into chapter seven, he had gone into the Lord, crying out to the Lord, even his faith was shook.

So where we've left the people of God is they doubt the promise of God. They reject in many ways the word of God, just like Pharaoh. And so these signs are for their benefit as much as for Pharaoh. Both Pharaoh and the people of God have doubted the word of God, have rejected the word of God.

And yet the people of God will be saved through the judgment while the enemies of God will be brought to condemnation.

Through the judgment.

There's nothing that sets the people of God apart from the Egyptians in this matter, except the sheer mercy of God upon them, that He desired His judgments to be the means of their salvation rather than their ruin.

And so it is with the Christian. There is no difference between us and those that are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, but sheer grace that is rested upon us. For we did not receive the word apart from Him.

We did not believe the signs apart from Him. We would not have come to Him apart from Him. Unless the Spirit of God had been put within us, we would not have been born again. And if we had not been born again, we would not have come to faith.

And so there's no difference here. The judgments that should fall upon us have not fallen upon us. And we have been freed, not of ourselves, but for the very glory of God. All that we would know the Lord.

Not through His condemnation, but through His mercy that we would know the Lord. Psalm 78 verse 12 says this very thing. Marvelous things He did in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt. So it's not just the marvels in the eyes of Pharaoh, it's the marvels in the eyes of God's children.

He did these things for their sake as well. But of course, Pharaoh is central to the plague narrative and the interaction between Moses and Pharaoh and ultimately between God and the principality behind Pharaoh is always in view.

And notice what the Lord says explicitly about Pharaoh's hardness. Until now, you would not hear. Until now, you would not hear. And until doesn't mean that's about to change. He says even up to this point, you would not hear.

Don't be surprised at what I'm about to do. Even till now, you would not hear. Beside the mystery of divine sovereignty interwoven with man's responsibility, we know, of course, we've established this.

Man is left without excuse. God is first cause, God is sovereign, He does whatever He pleases. And yet, in that mystery of man's responsibility, man's culpability, man is left without excuse. And we see that even here.

We have just read in the first part of chapter seven, I am going to harden the heart of Pharaoh. But then what does God actually say to Pharaoh when Moses confronts him on the Nile? Even till now, you will not hear.

Now, if God had hardened the heart of Pharaoh, why does God need Pharaoh to hear that? Why is God establishing that fact to Pharaoh? He's showing the responsibility to Pharaoh. He's showing the agency of Pharaoh.

He's showing the responsibility of Pharaoh. Even now, you will not hear. And so we always point, not beginning with the sovereignty of God to end with the sovereignty of God, but beginning with the sovereignty of God and pointing to the responsibility of man.

Have you been given ears to hear? Hear, because even till now,.

You have not heard the word of the Lord.

And that will not be on the Lord on that great day. That will be on you. Now, as I said, we don't have this normal demand, this normal condition. Pharaoh is told judgment is coming. Very rarely in the Old Testament do we have signs which aren't meant to confirm the Word of God.

God is not in the business of doing signs for the sake of doing signs. God does signs in order to confirm His Word. We have that as a pattern through various instances, not only as we'll see in Exodus, but through the prophets.

We have that as well at the foundation of the church in the New Testament. Signs that confirm the Word of God. You can read that throughout the course of Acts. This is not signs that then draw people away from the Word, but rather confirm the truthfulness, the veracity of God's Word.

And that's a very important point because well-meaning Christians today become very obsessed with signs and they miss the fact that the signs are there to draw you to the Word. I'm always very hopeful for those Christians that claim to have received a sign or seen a sign and have only thereafter been led into a deeper trust and walk in the Word, not pandering after more signs and not following after peddlers of signs.

It's always a good sign. So Muslims, for instance, in very hard-to-reach places for the Gospel, and you hear of almost endless reports of Muslims having some sort of encounter, almost like Jacob in his dreams, having an encounter with the living God.

And I have very little reason to doubt that that is true if the fruit of that is then being drawn to the Word of God and devoting themselves, even sacrificing themselves for the sake of that Word, not looking for more signs.

And I've met men in seminary classes that have this testimony. They don't like to share that very freely or easily. They're almost embarrassed to admit how the Lord first broke into that darkness in their lives.

But it's important to point out this first plague is not conditional upon refusal. Don't imagine that Moses will go intercept Pharaoh in his retinue on the Nile, and Pharaoh can go, okay, fine, I turn back.

And it's like, oh, good, well, now the plague will be stayed. No, it's too late. This is simply the announcement of the plague that is already coming. In other words, Pharaoh doesn't have a chance. And I say that because some people, they live their lives outside of Christ, and they delude themselves thinking, when the right chance comes, I will come to the Lord.

I just need the right chance. When the right time, when the right chance comes. Look at this very carefully. This is not a chance for Pharaoh. This is not a chance. If you're looking for a chance to come, when that chance comes, it's already too late.

The Act of the Plague and the Nile Turned to Blood

We see, secondly, the act of the plague, verses 19 through 21. When the Lord spoke to Moses, say to Aaron, take your rod, stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, over their rivers, over their ponds, over all their pools of water, and they may become blood.

And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in buckets of wood and pitchers of stone. And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the Lord commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants.

And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died. The river stank. The Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

Water, one of the most essential gifts of God's creation, is here rendered useless. To understand how distressing this would have been for the Egyptians, one has to appreciate how dependent they were upon the Nile.

The Nile was the key to Egyptian power actually being Egyptian power. There would be no Egypt if it were not for the Nile. Egypt didn't make the Nile. The Nile made Egypt. That's why the Nile along with the sun were the chief gods over Egypt.

Not only was it the sustenance by which crops were watered, but also it was their transportation system to move all of their goods and all of their troops from place to place speedily. It formed, of course, the irrigation system that enabled them to grow great agriculture that even in the time of the Roman Empire was still the breadbasket of the Mediterranean world.

We find at the very end of Acts 28 what is Paul shipwrecked on, an Alexandrian grain freighter. Where's that coming from? Egypt, the breadbasket of the ancient world. And so if you look at the historical importance of the Nile for this particular region and the agricultural abundance that led to sort of global dominance at this period in time, you can recognize how important this first plague is.

Now many commentators, they want to assert a theory of natural causation for the plagues. Natural causation for the plagues. Now I personally want to say there's a series of consequences that need to be understood as natural successive events.

But in no way should we ever see these plagues as anything but supernatural acts of the Lord God. German higher critics love to write massive monographs explaining why there's all sorts of ways we can understand that these were just typical phenomena that were perhaps longer or more intense than usual.

Well, that is not what the narrative paints for us. These are acts from the hand of God. And yet in saying they're supernatural or above nature, it does not repudiate the fact that they involve nature.

So many of these plagues will be, of course, beginning with a supernatural act of God, and yet there'll be various natural phenomena and consequences that flow from these supernatural acts of God. So I would encourage you to hold both together.

We shouldn't speak of supernatural acts as repudiating nature, though they are above nature. And so of course we give the predominance to God acting outside of, apart from, even against nature, and yet because He's acting within nature, there are natural consequences that flow from it.

This is an ecological disaster of epic proportions. If it were to happen today, what would the response be? It would probably be an army of white-suited FEMA troops and prophets on MSNBC crying out about how to prevent the next one, smashing cars of SUVs or what have you.

We would probably have every response under the sun except the response that matters most, the response that matters most to this particular plague here in Exodus chapter seven. That is a response toward the Lord God, not a response toward the plague or the effects of the plague or the prevention of future plagues, but a right response to the Lord God.

If this were to happen in our day, as many natural disasters have occurred in our day, we can see, as we have seen, every response, every concern imaginable would be stated, but they would all be geared toward what happened and how can we prevent it from happening again?

Who did this and how can we prevent them from doing it again? They'll never ask the question why, speaking at that higher level, at that sort of transcendental level, why do things like this happen? Why did this particularly happen?

In other words, they'll look to all of the immediate horizontal reasons that this could have happened, that this should not have happened and how to prevent it from happening again. But we recognize, as readers of Exodus, that this happened because the Lord God stretched out his hand and struck the land.

And therefore, the ultimate cause lies with the Lord God. Therefore, the ultimate response must be toward the Lord God. You don't need an army of FEMA troops to prevent the next plague. You need humility and repentance before the Lord God to prevent the next plague.

Now, that's true in people's lives as well. It's not just true of empires, true of people. Some cataclysmic event, some trial erupts in their life and they look at perhaps the thought, could this be a chastisement?

No, no, no, no.

Could this be the judgment of God for this or that?

No, no, no, no, no.

What's the immediate horizontal explanation and reason? How can I look to every possible reason and answer that has nothing to do with God rather than recognizing that everything has come in direction toward the Lord?

We have to be very careful at how we understand these plagues and what that means for human history, what that means for civilization, what that means for nations like ours. We'll be circling back to that in a moment.

This is not just something that happened to ancient Egypt as a one-off. There's wars and there's rumors of wars, there's famines. Even these are from the hand of God. The Puritans had this understanding of history that nations are judged by God and yet nations cannot be judged in eternity for every individual soul is judged at eternity.

On that great day when all is laid bare before him, he doesn't say, all right, I'm gonna judge you as an individual, as a soul that I have made, but I'm also gonna judge you as an American or when you migrated here, you're kind of half in, half out of that.

No, he understood he judges nations in history. Nations are judged in history. And so these acts of God that we see, isn't it interesting that insurance agents still have the possibility of claiming something as an act of God?

And what do they mean by that? We cannot give a natural causation for this. This is so beyond our statistics for how we measure insurance that this is just an act of God. Why did Billy Ray's pickup truck get struck five times by lightning?

That's an act of God. What was Billy Ray up to? We look at our nation and we recognize there's nothing so unique about our nation that our nation will not be judged in its history, in the course of history, as God is working his redemption through the fallen world.

Unto that great new creation. So we look very carefully, not only at our nation and the plagues and disasters that come that should not provoke us to the immediate response or the politician's answer, but actually to the Lord.

Is it not distressing to you? To see not only the God haters, not only the atheists and the secularists and the Marxists, but to see even evangelicals saying thoughts and prayers are meaningless right now.

We need more than thoughts and prayers.

That's so low.

That's just an excuse not to act. We don't need thoughts and prayers.

Excuse me.

That's what we need most.

Forget the thoughts. Let's just talk about prayer.

I don't know how a thought is helpful at all.

Prayer.

Wouldn't it be great if the nation would bend their knees and pray and cry out to God for mercy? Otherwise, God will take our lifeblood. Our lifeblood is not the Nile, but we certainly have all sorts of vulnerabilities in the things we boast about.

With our great economy, with our GDP, with our military prowess, with our global hegemony, we have so many Niles as a nation that God could strike and bring us to nothing. Just as God strikes the lifeblood of Egypt and makes it blood.

And what do we read? The fish that were in the river died. The river stank. So even if the people weren't there close to the banks of the Nile, you go out to sort of the remnants of the empire, Father Aloof, the whole land began to stink.

The 19th century. London as a city was the first city in the 19th century to break the one million person threshold since ancient Rome around the first century. That's a lot of centuries. That's almost two millennia before that million person city threshold was broken again.

And of course, as you have a massive influx of urbanization in London with that, as our good friends at Blue Owl know, you need to address plumbing issues. There were 200 ,000 cesspits within a span of about 30 years, 360 new sewers, and Charles Dickens wrote that the Thames was becoming a deadly sewer more than a fresh river.

And that all came to a head in June of 1858 when the temperatures in London soared on average between 93 and 97 degrees in the sun up to 118 degrees, which caused evaporation along the Thames so that raw sewage was exposed all along the banks of the river.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert went out for a pleasure cruise. It lasted eight minutes. They couldn't breathe and they went back to the palace and soon the parliament evacuated and no one wanted to be anywhere near the Thames.

And that event in the hands of the press became known as the Great Stink, the Great Stink of London in 1858. Michael Faraday and many other brilliant civil engineers ended up creating the modern sewage system that London still operates under.

Well, this is Egypt's Great Stink, the Great Stink of Egypt, and Pharaoh is not going to want to do a pleasure cruise along the bloody Nile. And I should say also, this is not the first time the Nile was reddened with blood.

This is not the first time the Nile was reddened with blood. And that's a very important part to understand this first plague. If you've ever seen that opening scene of Saving Private Ryan when they storm Omaha Beach at Normandy and after the battle, the main character played by Tom Hanks is sort of handshaking as he takes a swig from a canteen and he looks back and he sees just the scene of carnage from that initial wave.