15 Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river’s brink against he come; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand.

16 And thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear.

17 Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.

18 And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river.

When Moses showed the miracle of water turning to blood to the Israelite elders, he had merely scooped some water from the river and poured it out on the soil. This time he was to turn the entire river red, causing the land to literally flow with blood. As discussed earlier, this blood is both the blood of the innocent Israelite sons who were cast into the river, and also a sign of the future Egyptian blood that would be shed in retribution.

Of course this miracle would also be mirrored in the future by Jesus turning the water into wine, and wine is a very similar image to that of blood. Thus, the miracle that Moses performed for Pharaoh had direct application to the situation in which it was conducted, but the fact that its same imagery appeared in entirely other contexts shows us that there must also be a larger, more universal interpretation of it also.

One possible interpretation is that of God creating life. The water to blood shows how the Lord is able to turn base material into part of a living thing. And not just living, but also dying. Blood is, after all, both an emblem of life and death. Thus it is God creating the entire mortal experience, from one end to another, birth to death. God draws this existence out of the base materials: dust to body and water to blood. Just as God created the Earth with its bodies of continent and veins of river, he authored the human body of flesh and vein of blood as well.