What Does Exodus 7:20 Mean?
And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river, before the eyes of Pharaoh and before the eyes of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote 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 KEY
The verb translated “turned” also carries the force of overturning: the life-bearing river is made to display its opposite.
THE MEANING
A source you depend on can become a sign of what power cannot control. Here the river’s waters are turned to blood in full view of Pharaoh and his servants; the change is public and material. What appears dependable is not beyond reversal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever has sustained life remains safe simply because it is familiar.
THE ROOT
וַיֵּהָפְכוּ
wayyēhāphĕkhū
GROWS FROM
הפך
Turn, overturn, transform.
The waters are not merely altered in appearance: the verb can describe a thorough overturning. Its other forms speak of cities overthrown and mourning turned to dancing, holding destruction and restoration within the same root of reversal.
ALSO GROWS
mahpekah: Overthrow.
מַהְפֵּכָה
This noun for a complete overthrow shows that the root can describe a reversal that remakes conditions, not just a change of position.
wayyahaphokh: He overthrew.
וַיַּהֲפֹךְ
In Genesis 19:25 the same root describes cities being overthrown, echoing the total reversal of the waters here.
THE PATTERN
When a condition is reversed, the change shows itself in the very substance or life being transformed.
And he overturned those cities, and all the plain, and all who settled in those cities, and what sprouted from the ground.You overturned the beating of my breast into a dance. You untied my sackcloth and girded me with gladness.The third messenger pours out his bowl upon the rivers and the springs of the waters, and they become blood.THE THREAD
You overturned the beating of my breast into a dance. You untied my sackcloth and girded me with gladness.Exodus uses וַיֵּהָפְכוּ (wayyēhāphĕkhū, “they were turned”) for the waters becoming blood; Psalm 30:11 uses הָפַכְתָּ (hāphakhta, “you turned”) for mourning becoming dancing. One root carries both reversals: the river is overturned into blood, while mourning is turned into joy.
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