How were Pharaoh’s magicians able to perform miracles?

Answer

The account of Pharaoh’s magicians is detailed in Exodus 7–8. This is when Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh in Egypt, demanding the release of God’s people, the Israelites, from slavery. Moses and Aaron performed miracles to validate their message, and Pharaoh’s magicians managed to replicate these miracles on three occasions.

God communicated with Moses through a burning bush, instructing him to speak to Pharaoh on His behalf (Exodus 3). During this encounter, God granted Moses the power to perform miracles “And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.”, (Exodus 4:21). Anticipating Pharaoh’s request for a sign, God instructed Moses and Aaron to throw down Aaron’s staff during their initial meeting with the ruler. Aaron obeyed, and his staff transformed into a snake. Pharaoh promptly called for his magicians, who also turned their staffs into snakes. In a foreboding turn of events for Pharaoh’s court, Aaron’s snake consumed the magicians’ snakes (see Exodus 7:8-13).

On two more occasions, Pharaoh’s magicians replicated miracles to match those performed by Moses and Aaron. The first plague that Moses invoked on the Egyptians was a plague of blood. The magicians likewise turned water into blood as Moses had done to the Nile River (Exodus 7:14-22). The second plague involved a swarm of frogs unleashed upon the Egyptian populace, and the magicians summoned their own frogs, exacerbating the issue instead of resolving it Exodus 8:1-7. After this, however, the magicians’ power stopped as they were unable to replicate any further plagues, and they acknowledged they were witnessing “the finger of God” in Moses’ signs (verse 19).

But how were the magicians of Egypt able to perform the miracles in the first place? There are two possible answers to this question. The first is that the magicians received their power from Satan. Although not as powerful as God, Satan, formerly one of God’s highest angels, has the power to deceive, emulate miracles, and even tell the future with a certain degree of accuracy (see Luke 4; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Acts 16:16-18). Satan may have given Pharaoh’s magicians the power to duplicate some of the signs God performed through Moses and Aaron.

The second option, and the more probable, is that the magicians simply created illusions. Through sleight of hand and conjurer’s tricks, they deceived their audience into believing that they were performing the same miracles as Moses and Aaron. The first illusion, that of turning the staffs into snakes, may have been performed by snake charming, which was widely practiced in ancient Egypt (and even some today). There was a way in which snake charmers could cause a snake to stiffen like a staff and relax on command. Since the magicians were summoned after Aaron threw down his own staff, they would have had time to prepare the trick in advance. As for turning the Nile to blood, only dye is needed to make water run red. The frogs may be a more complicated illusion, but, just as modern illusionists can pull rabbits out of hats, Pharaoh’s magicians could have summoned frogs.

Whether they were creating illusions or performing actual miracles, the Egyptian magicians were eventually stymied by God’s power. They were unable to summon gnats (Exodus 8:16-19),Turn the sky dark (Exodus 10:21-23), call down hailstones (Exodus 9:22-26), or replicate any of the other plagues. God’s power is significant enough to overcome both man’s scheming and Satan’s power effortlessly.