Exodus 7:15

Get thee unto Pharaoh. God here imparts to Moses final instructions on announcing to Pharaoh the first of a series of divine judgments on the land of Egypt. Thebes was the capital of the country under Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, but it is hardly conceivable that Moses performed these miracles there, hundreds of miles south of the Delta, where the land of Goshen was situated. Psalms 78:43 refers to the plagues as being wrought “in the field of Zoan.” Since the Biblical Zoan is the ancient Tanis, in the eastern Delta country, a city built seven years later than Hebron in Palestine (Numbers 13:22), it must be that the king was in temporary residence at or near Tanis during the time of the plagues. It is known that there were royal palaces in various parts of the country.

He goeth out. This remark and that of Exodus 8:20 imply that the king went to the river every morning. Inasmuch as the food and prosperity of Egypt were dependent upon the Nile (see on Genesis 41:34), one of the duties of the king was to worship at its banks each morning (see Desire of Ages, p. 265).

The rod. See on v. 9.