According to Exodus 7, what happened to the Nile River in the first plague?

According to Exodus 7, the Nile River turned to blood in the first plague.

Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh, and Aaron struck the Nile with his staff in the biblical account. The water became blood, fish died, and the river became foul. Egyptians had difficulty obtaining drinkable water from the Nile and from channels, ponds, and reservoirs connected with it.

The first plague begins the sequence of ten judgments described in Exodus. It directly targets Egypt’s most important waterway and agricultural resource. The narrative then moves through frogs, gnats or lice, flies, disease among livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.

This event is distinct from the later crossing of the sea. The Nile plague concerns Egypt’s river and occurs before the Israelites leave the country. The biblical account also says that Egyptian magicians imitated the sign, worsening the water shortage rather than solving it.