The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 7:18

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

The fish … shall die. This would increase the greatness of the calamity, for the Egyptians lived to a very large extent upon fish, which was taken in the Nile, in the canals, and the Lake Morris (Herod.

2.149). The river shall stink. As Keil and Delitzsch observe, "this seems to indicate putrefaction." The Egyptians shall loathe to drink. The expression is stronger in Exodus 7:24, where we find that "they could not drink."

We may presume that at first, not supposing that the fluid could really be blood, they tried to drink it, took it into their mouths, and possibly swallowed some, but that very soon they found they could not continue to do so.

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