And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
Water turned to blood strikes horror into the soul, but the justice runs deeper: Egypt made an idol of the Nile, and God justly turned their god into a curse. Whatever creature we worship instead of the Creator, the Lord will either remove from us or make bitter to our taste.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 7:14-25
The fish died because the water truly became blood, not merely appearing so; had it been illusion only, the fish would have lived. Egypt's calamity was severe because the common people subsisted chiefly on fish, and the Nile's water, prized so highly that soldiers preferred it to wine, was their sole source of drink in a land where rain hardly fell.
AI summary
And the fish that [was] in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. To show that it was a true miracle, God plagued them in that which was most needed for the preservation of life.