This plague is part of this salvation history, leading to the Passover and finally to the cross. The text says “blood.” We would not rationalize away the blood mixed with water as they pierced Jesus’ side. We should not rationalize away the blood of the plague.

Abel’s blood for vengeance
Pleaded to the sky,
But the blood of Jesus
For our pardon cries.

Where the paschal blood is poured,
Death’s dread angel sheathes the sword;
Israel’s hosts triumphant go
Through the waves that drown the foe. Alleluia!

Blood is everywhere! By reducing the blood of the Nile to some other means, our confession is weakened. A weak Christian might ask, “If the Nile didn’t really turn to blood, then what else didn’t happen?”

Even if the red algae theory is tolerable and in harmony with Scripture (and I can’t say that it is right now), TLSB is not the place to promote this, especially if it is not a part of a balanced article weighing other thoughts on the text.

Going back for a moment to your comparison of this to the Lord’s Supper, I would argue that the context leads us in entirely different directions on these two issues. John 6 and 1 Corinthians 11 reinforce the literal interpretation of Jesus’ words: it is actually His blood. On the other hand, actual blood flowing through the Nile, while absolutely a good and reasonable reading of the text, might not fit the pattern of the first few plagues as well as a multiplication of algae would.

Having said all that, I believe this is merely an interpretation of the text that happens to have some reasonable arguments in its favor. I think we would both agree that TLSB should not have declared this interpretation as if it were established fact.

Feel free to email me if any of what I said needs to be clarified or if there are any glaring holes in what I’ve said. kaleb70@gmail.com

With all due respect, I think you just made the truthfulness of scripture dependent upon the impression of the reader. Isn’t this is the “What does it mean to you?” argument?

I have seen the “Ten Commandments” so many times that Moses looks like Charlton Heston & Pharaoh like Yul Brynner in my mind. But sincerity is no argument.

I also, like others, don’t want to beat this to death. Maybe there is a better place for a more lengthy discussion. But I was trained to read the word “blood” as real blood unless there was something in the surround text or the immediate context that told me it was something other than real blood.

The frogs can be real frogs multiplies by God in the same way He can make a fish on the spot to swallow up Jonah. The moon turning to blood, as others have mentioned, is prophesy and clearly in a separate category of literature, and thus is interpreted in a different way.

This account of the plagues is not like that, and so, unless the context leads us into a different understanding, we should just be happy that it is blood and leave it at that. Otherwise, I can just call it chocolate pudding because I lived by the Mississippi river as a child and the barges would kick up a mud that looked like chocolate pudding, but the fish died and it really smelled bad. So maybe I genuinely think of rancid chocolate pudding when I read it and that is what it means to me.

One final note. The pastor I mentioned before actually did believe that God dried up the swamp, and that the people passed through it with a small hedge like wall on either side on slightly muddy ground, and that the chariot wheels of the Egyptians got stuck in the mud and they were all drowned, and that it was a miracle of God to use nature in this way.

This is one of the reasons I am Lutheran.

Blessings to you!

Several of the other plagues were seemingly natural phenomena gone haywire. To believe that the frogs were a miracle, do we have to think they were some kind of special miracle frogs? Of course not. They were just frogs.

Many people who read this text really, genuinely think of a red tide when they read it. To them, that *is* the plain reading of the text.

Years ago, I had a pastor who tried to tell his congregation that Moses led the people through a swamp, it spite of what the text says. This was a popular theory at the time. Several people in our church, myself included, lost a lot of respect for the man because he introduced a principle of interpretation which made him and his theories the authority. This conversation reminds me a lot of that time.

My own view on the passage is that God turned the water into real blood, and that the best Pharaoh’s magicians could do was turn it red by natural means. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened toward God. Can we, by tinkering with scripture, do the same to other people? I wonder.

It is ironic that we ask people to believe that Christ’ blood is present in the supper, but we might not want to lead them to believe that real blood was present in the Nile. Why?

I agree with Dan. What is to be gained here? If “blood” doesn’t really mean “blood”, what else doesn’t mean what it says? That is where the rubber meets the road in the real world.

K.I.S.S.

Peace, In Christ

Pr. Brown brings up a great point (re: “embarrassment”), that I think also helps answer/refute the “machismo” worries (not unwarrantedly) brought forth by John.

To that point I would add this: There seems to me to be a danger of falling into the “Did God really say…?” trap, when we overthink/overexamine a text, and move beyond the plain, simple, & straightforward reading given to us in Scripture. IOW, if it says “blood”, what overwhelming & corroborating Scriptural evidence is there to safely lead us to even a pious opinion that it’s *not* blood? Else, wouldn’t it be more prudent to stick with the plain, literal reading & meaning?

While, in this particular note’s case, both readings are still well within the “God’s miracle in God’s time” parameters, one reading does run the risk of introducing more doubt (via the “Did God really say…?” trap) than the other.

The CSSB references Psalm 78:44 and 105:29, which reference the Exodus plagues, rather than Joel in CSSB’s thesis that blood may not be blood. CSSB doesn’t mention Joel at all. Neither TLSB’s nor CSSB’s notes for the two verses in Psalms do not stipulate about blood being something else.

I got three passages that say the Nile turned to blood, versus one passage in Joel that’s modified by the Revelation of St. John. I’m still thinking blood is blood at this point.

Some people may get a kick of being holier than thou because they follow the Bible to the letter better than someone else. I am just a poor, miserable sinner, whose curiosity has been aroused. If someone thinks it’s red sediment or the Crimson Tide, I don’t see them going to Hell for it.

I would like to see the definite “thus it was not a chemical change” changed to indicate that there may very well have been blood in the Nile.

The first is honest and legit, even if debatable. The second is. . . dubious.

Now, looking at the Greek and Latin (for my Hebrew is lousy), there seems to be a stronger, concrete usage of blood – it is “metabalei eis” and “egeneto” in Greek, changed into, become. Latin has the vertantur – also a strong word denoting actual change.

The only thing that gives me pause is the idea in verse 18 that the Egyptians would hesitate to drink it. . . if it were full bore blood, I don’t know of anyone who would drink it… although watered down blood would still be freaky. And that also shows up in 19 where it hits all the pots and such as well.

http://www.lifeinfreshwater.org.uk/Web%20pages/ponds/Pollution.htm

Note the dramatic picture about three-fourths of the way down, and the description of how the algae produce a liver toxin.

An abnormal proliferation of this algae is *very* consistent with the other plagues–especially, the following three plainly involve the abnormal proliferation of animals or insects. On the other hand, actual blood, while certainly possible, doesn’t seem to fit the pattern.

I particularly appreciated John H’s remarks. I definitely see some of this dynamic going on here, John.

Was the water actually blood? Perhaps it was. Was the water turned into what everyone could see looking like blood? Most obviously.

Having grown up on an ocean, and spent most of my childhood at a bayou fishing, boating, etc. I can tell you that a red tide is an amazing thing, and one can only but imagine what God could do with a red tide. The water looks bloody and talk about a stench!

Either way, as the one note Piper cited put it:

““In either case, the Bible is describing a true miracle. God produced the results He said He would, and He did it when He said He would.”

Excellent.

I just wish that people who have a concern could find a way to express without resorting to the “tirade” one person felt necessary to indulge himself in on a Facebook page where he accused TLSB of embracing higher criticism, being littered with crap, and heretical.

Egads.

Perhaps, since this is a bit of pious speculation, it might have helped if the note said, “thus it may not have been a chemical change” rather than “thus it was not a chemical change”.

Or, addressing an underlying concern, that “it is possible to understand, without applying a historical-critical hermeneutic, that this wasn’t blood. Here’s how some have gotten to that point.”

I’m still thinking blood here, but I am ever the student.

I don’t see why our commitment to Scripture as God’s (written) Word commits us in advance to particular exegetical conclusions on what that Word says. I sometimes get the impression that a certain machismo creeps in, a desire to push the “literal” meaning as far as possible in order to demonstrate just how seriously you take God’s Word: “Well, I double-super-extra believe in the Bible, so [to take a not-dissimilar example] I think that Jesus sweated actual blood rather than just blood-like drops of sweat!”

So I have no particular view on Exodus 7, other than the fact that it was a divine miracle for the redemption of his people. But to treat the question as a three-alarm fire, as some (not you) have done (e.g. “an epic failure, heresy and a false hermeneutic”) seems… disproportionate.

The ESV Study Bible’s note for Ex 7:19 is the most directly germane, and it reads, “The extent of the first plague shows that it cannot be explained simply as the result of natural causes.”

Also, the HCSB Apologetics Study Bible’s note for Ex 7:20 cites the two ways in which blood is referred to (literally and figuratively), using Joel 2:31 as the citation for figurative use. The note then finishes with this, “In either case, the Bible is describing a true miracle. God produced the results He said He would, and He did it when He said He would.”

Frankly, I’m a bit surprised that TLSB didn’t take the plain, simple, literal reading of this text, absent any definitive and/or voluminous corroborating Scriptural evidence to do otherwise. I tend to think that the ESV Study Bible note got it “righter”.

I’m also a bit disquieted, for some reason, by the fact that TLSB’s note for Ex 7:19 puts blood in quotation marks (i.e., “blood”).

Do I agree with the note on v. 17? No. Is it heretical? I won’t go that far. There will never be a perfect (by my standards) study bible, nor will there be for you, for Stan, or for anyone else… not even McCain.

Remember, just because someone can show that something is plausible doesn’t necessarily mean that it is identical to their own position.

Relax.