Exodus 7:1-2

THE DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL (Exodus 7-14)

"And Jehovah said unto Moses, See, I have made thee as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee; and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land."

"I have made thee as God to Pharaoh ..." This endowed Moses with full authority to address Pharaoh as an equal, not as a subordinate. The contrast between the first confrontation and this one is dramatic. In the first one (Exodus 5), Moses explained the reason for their request, and limited it to "a three days journey into the wilderness," the same being a legal and reasonable request. Pharaoh insulted Moses and Aaron, accused them of "lying words" (Exodus 5:9), and ordered them back to work, but, in this confrontation, and subsequently, Moses appeared before the cruel monarch as a plenary representative of God Himself, speaking through a God-ordained assistant and prophet, Aaron. Jamieson's comment on this is:

"(This meeting was not), as formerly, in the attitude of a humble suppliant, but now armed with credentials as God's ambassador, and to make his demand in a tone and manner which no earthly monarch or court had ever witnessed!"[1]

Thus, Moses here had the answer to the weakness regarding his speech which he had brought up the second time in Exodus 6:12.

"Aaron shall be thy prophet ..." The use of the word "prophet" here is significant in that it defines a prophet "as one who spoke not his own thoughts, but what he received of God."[2] "The prophet was the middleman between God and the people, God's mouthpiece, unlike the `Seer' whose name stressed how the message came."[3] The significance of the word "prophet" is that it identifies God, not the prophet, as the author of the message.

"Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh ..." Throughout the whole series of the Ten Wonders about to be related, Aaron spoke and acted for Moses, his actions and words being actually those of Moses, facts clearly indicated by this verse. How ridiculous, therefore, are all the quibbles with which the critics busy themselves about whether it was Aaron or Moses who stretched out the rod! Moses and Aaron were a divinely-constituted unit in all these actions, and whatever either of them did or said might properly be credited to the other or to both.

"That he let the children of Israel go ..." "The demand is for a full and final release of the Hebrews from bondage."[4]