Psalms 78:44

44 when he turned their rivers to blood so they could not drink [from] their streams.

Psalms 78:44 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 78:44

And had turned their rivers into blood
The river Nile and its seven streams; this was the first of the plagues of Egypt, ( Exodus 7:20 Exodus 7:21 ) , and was a just retaliation for drowning the infants of the Israelites in their river, ( Exodus 1:22 ) , a like plague will be inflicted on spiritual Egypt, and with equal justice; see ( Revelation 11:8 ) ( 16:3-7 ) ,

and their floods, that they could not drink;
the rivulets that flowed from the Nile, and every spring or confluence of water; or rather by these rivers and floods are meant the canals and ditches, which, as Jarchi ^F5 observes, were made by the hands of men, from the banks of the river Nile, to water their fields with.

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 Comment. on Exod. vii. 19. so Kimchi in Sepher Shorash. rad. (ra) .

Psalms 78:44 In-Context

42 And they did not remember his {power} {when} he redeemed them from the enemy,

43 how he performed his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the region of Zoan,

44 when he turned their rivers to blood so they could not drink [from] their streams.

45 He sent among them flies that devoured them and frogs that destroyed them.

46 And he gave their crop to the locusts and their labor to the locust.

Footnotes

• [a]. Normally the word for the Nile, with the plural here suggesting perhaps it and its canals