One of the major responsibilities of leaders, no matter the size of the organization, is to care for their people. That’s literally the number one job; the whole reason someone is in power is to serve the people.
Pharaoh apparently didn’t get that memo. In the midst of the first plague, which was so devastating that it killed an entire population of fish and forced his people to adopt new ways of getting water, Pharaoh turns his back, heads into his house, and has “no concern even for this.”
That shows the real heart of Pharaoh, doesn’t it? It’s bad enough that he doesn’t care enough for the Israelites to let them leave and worship Jehovah, but to not even care about your own people’s suffering? That’s a different kind of callousness.
But why doesn’t Pharaoh care about any of this? If we follow the context, Pharaoh’s lack of concern is directly attributed to the success of his magicians in “duplicating” Moses and Aaron’s miracle. If his own sorcerers can do it, to Pharaoh, God isn’t anything special. The suffering will be over eventually, and Moses and Aaron will go their way.
There has been a lot of speculation over the years as to how Moses and Aaron were able to perform these miracles. They claim that these plagues are a natural occurrence, such as the silting of the Nile River that turns it literally red due to an abundance of algae.
Those arguments miss three important components: timing, location, and severity. According to Scripture, the Nile turns into blood when Moses’ staff hits the water. Exodus 7:20 states that when Moses struck the Nile, “in the sight of Pharaoh and all his servants,” that’s when the Nile turned into blood. Natural occurrences aren’t as instantaneous.
The severity of the plague has to also be taken into consideration. Apparently, the plague was so intense that it killed animal life and created a desperation for water in Egypt—so much so that they started digging wells. Evidently, this wasn’t something that they were used to seeing on a regular basis, but something so extreme that they had to quickly adapt or die.
The location is arguably the most important. When Moses strikes the Nile, it turns into blood. But when Aaron stretches his hand out, the independent bodies of water do the same. Could the magicians do that?
It’s unlikely that Pharaoh recognized any of these things—or if he did, even cared in the first place. The only thing he understood was that the plagues didn’t affect him.
Eventually though, it will. The tenth plague won’t just affect the people Pharaoh sees out of his balcony, but the ones living inside his own house. And once that happens, and his firstborn son dies, Pharaoh won’t be able to ignore it any longer.