I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 7-9.

It seems unlikely that Moses would have expected Aaron changing his staff into a snake to impress the Pharaoh and his court.  Moses would surely have been aware that many of Pharaoh’s advisers could duplicate that.  The fact that Aaron’s snake ate the snakes of the others probably disconcerted them and Aaron bringing that staff to each successive meeting was a reminder of that.  Aaron bringing his staff to successive meetings with Pharaoh would have highlighted one of two things: either the fact that Pharaoh’s advisers no longer had their staves, or that they had clearly used sleight of hand to turn their staves into snakes if they still had their staves.

I find it interesting how Pharaoh came to view the successive plagues as bearable, after they had been lifted.  Comparing Pharaoh’s actions to other negotiators in bad faith I have seen is instructive.  Pharaoh dismissed the staff turning into a snake and the water in the Nile turning to blood as tricks of no consequence.  These were both similar to things which Pharaoh’s advisers used to show divine support for Pharaoh’s edicts.  Then, when each of the successive plagues after that occurred Pharaoh was desperate to have them end.  However, when they did end, he dismissed the idea that Moses and Aaron had anything to do with them and decided that they had merely ended on their own.  On each occasion Pharaoh became more committed to not giving in to Moses’ demands (really, God’s demands, but Pharaoh would not have seen it that way).  We can easily, and correctly, view Pharaoh as the bad guy in these accounts, but we need to learn not to make the same mistake of going back on our promises to God when our time of desperation comes to an end.