The life-giving waters of the Nile played a significant role in biblical history, particularly in the lives of the Israelites. In Exodus, the Nile is the site where the Egyptians were instructed to throw every Hebrew boy, and later, it was the backdrop for the miraculous plagues God sent upon Egypt, including the turning of its waters to blood. The prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel reference the Nile in their oracles against Egypt, foretelling the desolation and drying up of the river, as seen in Isaiah 19 and Ezekiel 30. Jeremiah also mentions the Nile, warning of the dangers of relying on it, highlighting God's sovereignty over all creation.
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The waters of the Nile will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and empty. The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will trickle and dry up; the reeds and rushes will wither. The bulrushes by the Nile, by the mouth of the river, and all the fields sown along the Nile, will wither, blow away, and be no more. Then the fishermen will mourn, all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.
I will make the streams dry up and sell the land to the wicked. By the hands of foreigners I will bring desolation upon the land and everything in it. I, the LORD, have spoken. This is what the Lord GOD says: I will destroy the idols and put an end to the images in Memphis. There will no longer be a prince in Egypt, and I will instill fear in that land.
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live.”
Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile ? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates ?
And the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over their rivers and canals and ponds and reservoirs—that they may become blood.’ There will be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in the vessels of wood and stone.”
So all the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink, because they could not drink the water from the river.
The LORD will devote to destruction the gulf of the Sea of Egypt; with a scorching wind He will sweep His hand over the Euphrates. He will split it into seven streams for men to cross with dry sandals.
Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded; in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials, Aaron raised the staff and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was turned to blood.
But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—
In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.
On the great waters came the grain of Shihor; the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre; she was the merchant of the nations.
Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it.
The Nile will teem with frogs, and they will come into your palace and up to your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and your people, and into your ovens and kneading bowls.
After them, seven other cows, sickly and thin, came up from the Nile and stood beside the well-fed cows on the bank of the river.
Speak to him and tell him that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against you, O Pharaoh king of Egypt, O great monster who lies among his rivers, who says, ‘The Nile is mine; I made it myself.’
After two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing beside the Nile,
Then the fishermen will mourn, all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.
Will not the land quake for this, and all its dwellers mourn? All of it will swell like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.
They will pass through the sea of distress and strike the waves of the sea; all the depths of the Nile will dry up. The pride of Assyria will be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt will depart.