What Does Exodus 4:28 Mean?

And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. The briefing of Aaron is described in summary: Moses told Aaron "all the words" and showed him "all the signs." The completeness is emphasized: nothing was held back; the full commission was shared.

This transfer of information from Moses to Aaron is the activated version of the speech-relay God established in chapter 3 (verse 15): God teaches Moses, Moses tells Aaron. The first instance of the relay structure is not public but private, on the mountain, before either of them has spoken a word before Israel or Egypt.

The "words" and "signs" that Moses shares with Aaron constitute the full content of the burning bush commission: the theological identity of YHWH (I AM WHO I AM, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the plan for the plagues, the specific demands to be made of Pharaoh, and the three signs of authentication. Aaron is being inducted into the complete knowledge of the mission before he participates in it. He is not a spokesman working with partial information; he is told everything so that when he speaks for Moses before Israel and Pharaoh, he speaks with full comprehension of the commission's basis and scope.

The full briefing that Moses gives Aaron models the communication expected between those who share a mission. Jesus gives his disciples full knowledge of what the Father has said: "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15). The pattern of full-disclosure to mission partners, established in the Moses-Aaron briefing at Horeb, runs forward into the New Testament's account of Jesus' relationship to his disciples.