"Therefore concert your plan, and then assemble in (serried) ranks: He wins (all along) today who gains the upper hand."(2588)
2588 Presumably Pharaoh was in this secret conference, and he promises the most lavish rewards to the magicians if they overcome Moses. See 7:114. That-but I think more than that-is implied. That day was to be the crisis: if they won then, they would win all along, and Moses and his people would be crushed