22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.
These magicians must have been just as blind as Pharaoh. Doing a trick with a snake is one thing. There is not much harm in that. But turning water, an essential element in a desert climate, into something totally unusable, is really stupid. And yet, that is exactly what the magicians do. Perhaps they feared Pharaoh’s wrath if they didn’t do what he said. Remember, their families would have had to struggle to find water after their work. It is one thing to do something at work that stays at work. It is something entirely different when what you do at work comes home to negatively affect your family. And yet this is exactly what they do. I bet their wives were ripped when they found out what they had done at work. “This is all your fault!” And it really was their fault! Sometimes we get so stuck on a course of action that we don’t realize when we are headed in the opposite direction. When things are not going the way we expect, perhaps it is time to stop. When we find ourselves in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. When we are on the wrong train, get off and return to our previous location. If what we are doing for discipline with our children is not working, it makes no sense to continue the same course and expect different results. We must back up and reexamine the problem and take a different course of action. That is wisdom.
The Arnold Journey 