What Does Exodus 5:20 Mean?

They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh. Moses and Aaron are waiting for the foremen when they emerge from Pharaoh's audience: the deliverers have positioned themselves to receive the report of the appeal and its outcome. The waiting is itself a mode of pastoral presence: Moses and Aaron have not withdrawn from the situation or returned to their own concerns while the foremen were inside. They remain at the point of contact, available for whatever the foremen bring out. Their waiting is the physical expression of their continued investment in the community's situation.

The description of Moses and Aaron as "waiting for them" (Hebrew: nitsavim likratam, "standing to meet them") uses the same verb and preposition as theophany descriptions where divine beings stand to meet. Moses and Aaron at the exit of Pharaoh's court are a two-person pastoral team waiting to receive the report of the community's appeal and to respond to whatever they hear. The presence of Moses and Aaron at this moment is the beginning of their pastoral function that will extend throughout the Exodus: they are with the people in the difficulty, not managing the situation from a distance.

The encounter between the foremen and Moses and Aaron in verse 20 is the pivot of the chapter's emotional movement. The foremen carry out of Pharaoh's court not only the news of the failed appeal but the frustrated anger of people who have been beaten, dismissed, and denied. When they meet Moses and Aaron, that anger finds its target in verse 21. The waiting of Moses and Aaron is about to result in them receiving the full weight of the community's disappointed lament, directed at them as if they were the source of the problem. The pastoral availability they demonstrate in their waiting will be rewarded with blame.