The country Egypt is called the Gift of the Nile as it is Egypt's lifeline. Without the Nile, Egypt would have been a desert. Historically, the Nile has provided water for the cultivation of crops in Egypt that led to the burgeoning of many civilizations along the river valley.
The ancient Egyptians thought that the Nile is the gift of the gods. They equated it with life itself, and they organized their daily lives according to the high and low levels of its water. The Egyptian calendar was based on the three seasons of the Nile: The flood, agriculture, and harvest.
The Nile and the creation mythThe Nile is an integral part of a creation myth associated with the myth of Osiris. Death and rebirth is symbolised by the annual cycle of vegetation accompanying the rise and fall of the Nile waters. Witnessing the natural processes of the Earth influenced beliefs in an afterlife.
Every year the Nile would flood its banks, this would provide vital fertile silt and water to the land so that it could continue to grow crops. The ancient Egyptians developed irrigation methods to increase their crop yields that in turn supported the large population and mighty civilization of ancient Egypt.
Water turned to bloodThe Nile river was a life source for Egypt, and so this plague caused absolute disaster across the land. God used Moses and Aaron to bring about this plague. He sent them to the brink of the river Nile, where Aaron raised his staff and struck the water, which then turned it into blood.
The Nile often plays a central role when Egypt is featured in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the book of Exodus. Pharaoh commands that all the Hebrew boys be drowned in the Nile ( Exod 1:22 ), but Moses's mother Jochebed saves his life by putting him in a basket and placing it in the river ( Exod 2:3 ).
The Nile was also an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapi was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife.