Heavy rainfall on Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf created blood-red rivers that tumbled over waterfalls, turning the sea bright crimson.
The location is sparsely inhabited and miles from the Iranian mainland, known locally as Silver and Red Beach. It is no stranger to this phenomenon, which also appeared last year. The volcanic soil on the island contains a high iron oxide content, producing a reddish pigment called Golak by natives. Golak is made into a reddish ochre used for artistic and culinary purposes.
While the non-believers can dismiss the blood-red waters with explanations based on mineralogy, the color hints at war as political relations between the US and Iran deteriorate. Trump-ordered airstrikes on the Iranian proxy Houthis killed at least 31 in Yemen. Trump warned the Islamist regime in Iran that if they threatened the United States, “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”
The appearance of a blood-red river is strongly reminiscent of the first plague that led to the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
Moshe and Aharon did just as Hashem commanded: he lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood Exodus 7:20
Jews will be reviewing the plagues in just a few weeks at the Passover seder.
According to Jewish tradition and based on a verse in Micah, the ten plagues will reappear before the Messiah.
I will show him wondrous deeds As in the days when You sallied forth from the land of Egypt. Micah 7:15
Jewish sources predict that the ten plagues will reappear in the final Redemption but in even more powerful forms. It is written in Midrash Tanchuma, homiletic teachings collected around the fifth century, that “just as God struck the Egyptians with 10 plagues, so too He will strike the enemies of the Jewish people at the time of the Redemption.”
Nahmanides, a prominent 12th-century Torah scholar from Spain, wrote in his commentary on the plagues that the primary reason God punished the Egyptians was not for enslaving the Israelite people but for dismissing God and his influence in their lives.
This concept was explained by Rabbi Bahya ben Asher, a 13th-century Spanish commentator, who wrote, “In Egypt, God used only part of His strength. When the final redemption comes, God will show much more His power.”
The image of a blood-red river has strong connotations for the Biblically-minded but is also significant to Muslims. In Islam, there are five plagues, i.e., floods, locusts, lice, toads, and turning of drinking water into blood. In comparison, in the Bible, there are ten plagues, i.e. water into blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, diseased livestock boils, storms of fire, locusts, darkness, and death of the firstborn. According to the Koran, the plagues were brought by Moses (Musa), one of Islam’s five most prominent prophets.
