What Does Exodus 4:16 Mean?

"He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him." The description of Moses' role in relation to Aaron, "you shall be as God to him," is one of the most striking formulations in the Exodus commissioning sequence. Aaron's relationship to Moses is modeled on Moses' relationship to God: as Moses receives from God and speaks through Aaron, Aaron receives from Moses and speaks to the people. Moses functions as the divine source in the human relay chain; Aaron functions as the prophetic deliverer of what Moses gives him.

The Exodus narrative will demonstrate the asymmetry this creates: Moses is the unquestioned authority throughout the wilderness period. When Aaron and Miriam challenge Moses' unique standing in Numbers 12, God's response is decisive: "With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" (Numbers 12:8). The "as God to him" formulation of verse 16 is the foundation of the Mosaic authority that numbers 12 defends: Moses' relationship to Aaron is theologically unique.

Verse 17 closes the sign-sequence with the echo that Moses shall take the staff of God in his hand. The staff that was Moses' shepherd's implement, that became a Serpent and was restored, is now called "the staff of God" (Hebrew: matteh ha-elohim).

The name change from "your staff" to "the staff of God" is the final Mark of consecration in the commissioning sequence: what was Moses' ordinary shepherd's tool has been enrolled in the service of the divine mission and is now identified by its divine association rather than its human owner. It will be this staff, now the staff of God, that is stretched over the Nile, over the sea, and over the battle.