Exodus 7

v1-7: People will know that God is the Lord. “Israel is made to know it by the fulfilment of his promise to them,” as will all of God’s people. “The Egyptians are made to know it by the pouring out of his wrath on them,” as will all who oppose God on the Day of Judgment. “God’s name is exalted both in those who are saved and in those who perish.”

v8-13: “This first miracle, even though it was not a plague, still amounted to the threatening of a plague.” As Pharaoh watched “the snake which Aaron’s rod was turned into [swallow] up the others,” he should have been convinced that “the cause of God will undoubtedly eventually triumph over all that compete with and contradict it,” but he was not persuaded.

v14-18: Moses is directed to meet Pharaoh at the riverbank in the morning because this is where he would be “either for the pleasure of his morning walk,” because “everyone walks in the name of their god,” or “to pay his morning devotions to the river,” for people “do not fail to worship their god every morning.”

v19-25: The turning of water to blood was “a righteous plague, and justly inflicted on the Egyptians,” for two reasons. The first reason was that “the Nile was personified and worshipped as a god in Egypt. The Egyptians and their land derived so much benefit from it that they served and worshipped it more than the Creator.” The second reason was “they had stained the river with the blood of the Hebrews’ children, and now God made that river all bloody.”

Exodus 8

v1-15: The intention of the plagues were to bring Pharaoh to repentance. But “until the heart is renewed by the grace of God, the effects made by suffering do not remain,” on them, and “the convictions wear off,” and “the promises that were made are soon forgotten.”

v16-19: If we are “not reformed by God’s word and providence,” we will be “made worse by them.”

v20-32: “The Lord knows those who are his.” He has set them apart for Himself, and He sometimes makes this clear “in this world,” and He certainly will “in the next.”