Exodus 7:1 - Meaning and Application

Here, first, God encourages Moses to go to Pharaoh and finally quiets every excuse and fear. He clothes Moses with great power and authority (Exodus 7:1): “I have made you like a god to Pharaoh.” That means Moses would act as God’s representative in this matter, just as rulers are called gods because they serve as God’s agents. Moses was authorized to speak and act in God’s name, and God also gave him power beyond ordinary human ability to demand obedience from a king and to punish disobedience.

Moses was “a god,” but only in the sense that God appointed him. He was not a god by nature, only by commission. He was also a god only to Pharaoh, while the living and true God is God over all the world. It is an act of God’s kindness, and a sign that his thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace, that when he deals with people, he does so through people. In that way, the terror of a messenger does not need to make us afraid.

God also appoints Aaron, Moses’ brother, as his helper. Aaron had not been “a man of uncircumcised lips,” but he was a capable speaker. “He shall be your prophet” means that Aaron would speak for Moses to Pharaoh, just as prophets speak for God to people. Moses, as the one with God’s authority, would bring and remove the plagues, and Aaron, as the spokesman, would announce them and warn Pharaoh about them.

God also tells Moses the hard part ahead, that Pharaoh would not listen to him. Yet the work would still be done in the end: Israel would be delivered, and God would be honored through it (Exodus 7:4, 5). The Egyptians, who would not know the Lord, would be forced to know him. This should satisfy God’s messengers: no matter how much resistance they face, they still gain the main point if God is glorified in their work, all his chosen people are saved, and they have not labored in vain.

Here we see how God glorifies himself. He makes people know that he is Jehovah, the Lord. Israel learns this through the keeping of his promises (Exodus 6:3), and Egypt learns it through the outpouring of his judgment. So God’s name is lifted up both in those who are saved and in those who are lost.

We also see the way he does this: he brings down the proud and lifts up the lowly (Luke 1:51, 52). If God stretches out his hand toward sinners and they still refuse him, he will at last stretch out his hand against them. Who can stand under the weight of that?

Second, Moses and Aaron go to their work without any more objection: “They did as the Lord commanded them” (Exodus 7:6). Their obedience, all things considered, deserves to be remembered, as the psalmist says (Psalm 105:28): “They did not rebel against his word,” meaning Moses and Aaron, whom he names later in the psalm. Jonah, too, though at first unwilling, finally went to Nineveh.

The passage also notes how old Moses and Aaron were when they began this great service. Aaron, the older brother, and yet the lower in office, was eighty-three. Moses was eighty. Both were men of great seriousness and experience. Their age gave them dignity, and their years should have made them wise.

Joseph, who was only to serve Pharaoh, was raised to honor at thirty years old. But Moses, who was to be a god to Pharaoh, did not receive that honor until he was eighty. It was fitting that he should wait long for such honor and be prepared for a long time for such a task.