Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

In Exodus, "ken" doesn't just mean "so, likewise"; it also means 
"gnat" in 8:12-14, "base, pedestal" in chapters 30-40, and "right, 
correct" in 10:29. (BDB distinguishes the meanings "so" and "right", 
deriving the latter from KWN but linking the former with K- and KIY). 
But probably "so" is the meaning in 7:22. But I guess it does not 
always mean "exactly the same". So perhaps the magicians took some of 
the underground water which had not become blood (7:24) and turned 
that also to blood. In that way the passage makes sense as it stands 
and does not need to be related speculatively to ancient myths. Indeed 
there need not be anything so supernatural if we are thinking of some 
sort of contamination by blood-red microorganisms, which would be 
filtered out by the mud of the riverbank - but maybe only partly, so 
that the apparently clean water which the magicians started with would 
become red with time (or maybe the "secret arts" included some 
trickery!). Actually the problem seems greater in 8:3 (English 8:7); 
if there were already frogs everywhere, who could tell which had been 
produced by the magicians and which by Moses and Aaron?

Peter Kirk