This is the final installment in a series of articles on the episode of Moses/Aaron confronting Pharaoh/the magicians in the duel of serpents/staffs in Exodus 7:8-13. Here are the preceding articles:
When Moses and Aaron return to Pharaoh, Yahweh explains that Pharaoh will ask for a sign (7:8-9). The term here (mōphēt, מוֹפֵת) can simply mean “miracle” but also could be translated “portent.”1 The sign given to Pharaoh—Aaron’s rod turning into a sea-monster and devouring the staffs of the magicians—certainly is a portent of what is to come: Pharaoh will be devoured by the sea.2
As mentioned in the last article, the self-styled god of Egypt, Pharaoh, was responsible for ensuring that ma’at—“the equilibrium of the whole universe”— reigned in Egypt. Currid explains:
In ancient Egypt, the king had the duty to maintain ma’at; he was considered the personification of universal order…Restoring and maintaining this harmony were imperatives for the Egyptian king, expectations that befit his office as the son of Re and the god-king.3
Consider then how humiliating this confrontation would have been for Pharaoh. Not only does Pharaoh have his very symbol of authority (his staff and the serpent god of his crown) challenged by an unknown Jewish shepherd and an unknown God, but his very claim to have mastery over chaos and ma’at is being undermined. The fact that the staffs turn into tahneen is critical here. In the ancient world, the one who has power over chaos is the most powerful of all the gods, the king of the gods. The fact that the staffs turn into monsters representative of the very chaotic forces Pharaoh is supposed to have power over is an outright challenge to Pharaoh’s divine claim: can you control the tahneen?
Order Out of Chaos
Remember, Yahweh has come not only to confront the human ruler of Egypt (Pharaoh), but the demonic forces behind him:
…on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. - Ex 12:12
On [Egypt’s] gods also the LORD executed judgments. - Num 33:4
For Aaron’s staff to proceed to devour the other staffs is a not so subtle way of demonstrating that it is Yahweh, not Pharaoh (or the gods he represents), who is the master over chaos; Yahweh alone is the sovereign Lord.
This theme of Yahweh being the sovereign Lord over creation and chaos is interwoven throughout the rest of the narrative. The ten plagues, while aimed at specific Egyptian deities—a further polemic meant to undermine Egypt’s gods—also appear to be a reversal of Genesis 1, a de-creation; a plunge back into chaos. Instead of light being given, darkness covers the land; instead of the organization of waters, water turns into blood; instead of green trees being given for food, locusts devour the vegetation; instead of the son of God (Adam, Luke 3:38) being given life, the son of “god” (Pharaoh’s son) is killed, and so on.4 The delicately balanced order of ma’at is being unraveled before Pharaoh’s eyes.
Simultaneously, Yahweh is demonstrating his own ma’at-like power by making repeated allusions to Genesis 1—Yahweh brings order out of chaos. In Exodus 1, Israel is collectively stylized as an Adamic figure, being fruitful and multiplying (Ex 1:7; cf. Gen 1:28). Moses similarly is stylized as a Noahic figure (himself presented as a new Adam, Gen 8:17), since he is delivered from a watery death by being placed in a basket (tēvah, תֵּבָה), the same word used for the ark in Genesis 6-8.5 Yahweh unleashes the forces of chaos to destroy the world by opening the “fountains of the deep” (tehōm, תְּהוֹם) in Genesis 7, but preserves Noah and his family. In Exodus 15:8, Moses describes the Israelites path as being through the primordial waters, the tehōm, which are conquered by the breath (ruach, רוּחַ) of Yahweh, reminiscent of creation (Gen 1:2) and the flood (Gen 8:1; cf. Ps 77:16-20).
However, when Pharaoh and his armies attempted to pass through the tehōm, they are utterly annihilated (15:5). Pharaoh lacks the power of Yahweh over the chaos-waters, the power to bring order to creation, as Yahweh does in Genesis and again to his people in the Exodus.6
Further, Ezekiel later identifies Pharaoh with the tahneen
Behold, I am against you,
Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon that lies
in the midst of his streams
…
Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him:
“You consider yourself a lion of the nations,
but you are like a dragon in the seas.
- Ez 29:3, 32:2
Ezekiel considered the duel of the tahneens to not only be a display of Yahweh’s superiority over Pharaoh in the power to bring order out of chaos—he goes on to identify Pharaoh himself as an agent of chaos. In other words, Pharaoh is not only an impotent god who fails to master the dragon, he is himself a dragon who will be mastered by the omnipotent Lord.
This, of course, is all proleptically announced at the magicians’ duel; only Yahweh has mastery over the tahneen (cf. Ps 148:7; Job 41).
In Sum
The main idea of Exodus 7:8-13 is Yahweh’s superior divine power over Pharaoh demonstrated through the confrontation between the magicians’ and Aaron’s rods. The rods represented the authority and power of the gods in the Egyptian culture, so Yahweh accommodates to this custom to demonstrate his superiority in a palpable way to the Egyptians. By the transformation of the staffs into sea-monsters, Yahweh is employing common mythic imagery for the primordial chaotic forces that threaten to undo the order of creation. By Aaron’s staff devouring Pharaoh’s (represented by his magicians in the same way Moses is represented by Aaron, Ex 7:1), Yahweh is asserting that He alone possess power over the forces of chaos (and order); that He alone is truly God. This sign was a proleptic foretelling of the chaotic forces that Yahweh will unleash on Egypt through the ten plagues and parting of the Re(e)d Sea.
The themes of Yahweh’s power over the tumultuous sea7, his mockery of false gods8, the sea as the location of terrifying, wicked monsters9, and Yahweh’s ultimate victory over the ancient serpent, the dragon10 are replete across the whole of Scripture and strengthen this interpretation.
Of course, Jesus Christ—Yahweh in the flesh—is the culmination of all these themes. He is the Son of Man who tramples down the stormy waves of the sea (Matt 14:22-27) and defeats the terrifying beasts who arise out of the chaos waters (Dan 7:1-14; Matt 26:64). He faces down the ancient serpent and resists his crafty wiles (Mark 1:13). He brings order, peace, and life to the chaos of sin, sickness, and death through His healings, exorcisms, and teachings. And through His own death and resurrection, He decisively crushes the head of the dragon, defeats the forces of darkness, and establishes His own kingdom of peace and eternal life (Gen 3:15; Col 2:15; Rev 20-22). Jesus can subdue the tahneen.
And though the dragon is defeated (Rev 12:7-9), his death-throes still are dangerous; he rages against the Church, though never quite successful (Rev 12:13-17). Paul warns that the dragon’s agents are still at work today. Speaking of the unrighteous in the “last days” (2 Tim 3:1), Paul warns:
Just as Jannes and Jambres11 opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. - 2 Tim 3:8-9
After casting the great dragon into the burning lake of fire, John can summarily describe the peace of the New Heavens and New Earth simply by stating: “the sea was no more,” (Rev 21:1).
I have found no better concise and artistic summary of this dragon theme than the Bible Project’s short video:
If you want a bit of a deeper dive into this world, check out Michael Heiser’s video here:
eg. 1 Kings 13:3; LXX translates it as both σημεῖον ἢ τέρας in Ex 7:9
This is why the staff of Aaron swallowing (bala, בלע) the magicians’ tahneen is also a sign that Pharaoh himself will be “swallowed” (Ex 15:12) at the Re(e)d Sea.
Currid and Kitchen, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 118.
Currid and Kitchen, 113-17. “It may be argued that a weakness of this interpretation is that the plagues do not follow the sequence of the days of creation. But that is the point—chaos, not order, reigned in Egypt.”
Further, the basket is sealed with tar and pitch, just like Noah’s ark (Ex 2:3; Gen 6:14)
The actual Exodus itself depicts Yahweh working a second act of creation: “The pillar of divine presence brings light into darkness (Ex 13:21, cf. the first creative day), the waters are divided (Ex 14:21, cf. the second creative day), and the dry land emerges (Ex 14:29; cf. the third creative day).” Warren Gage, The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Wipf & Stock Pub, 2001), 20-21.
Gen 1:1-2; Job 9:8; Prov 8:29; Ps 69; 77; 89:9; 104:6-9; Hab 3:8-10; Matt 14:22-27; Rev 4:6
1 Kings 18:20-40; Isaiah 44:9-20
Job 41; Isa 27:1; 51:9-10; Dan 7:1-8; Rev 12:17; 13:1
Gen 3:15; Isa 51:9-10; Ps 74:14; 89:10; Rev 20:2, 7-10
“It is generally believed; that the two who are mentioned, "Jannes and Jambres," were magicians put forward by Pharaoh. But from what source Paul learned their names is doubtful, except that it is probable, that many things relating to those histories were handed down, the memory of which God never permitted to perish. It is also possible that in Paul's time there were commentaries on the prophets that gave more fully those narratives which Moses touches very briefly. However that may be, it is not at random that he calls them by their names. The reason why there were two of them may be conjectured to have been this, that, because the Lord had raised up for his people two leaders, Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh determined to place against them the like number of magicians.” - John Calvin’s commentary on 2 Tim 3:8