What Does Exodus 7:2 Mean?

"You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land." The commission restated in verse 2 makes the communicative chain explicit: YHWH speaks to Moses, Moses speaks to Aaron, Aaron speaks to Pharaoh. Three links in a chain of speech, each one transmitting the word received from the previous, each one accountable to the word above it and responsible for the fidelity of its transmission downward. Pharaoh, when he hears Aaron, is hearing the end of a chain that began with YHWH. What Aaron says to Pharaoh is not Aaron's word; it is Moses' word, which is YHWH's word.

The standard "let the people of Israel go out of his land" formulation appears again here, unchanged by Moses' objections or Pharaoh's refusal or Israel's broken spirit. The word does not change because circumstances do not change it; the word precedes and governs the circumstances. That this word will be heard by Pharaoh repeatedly without producing obedience is already anticipated by what follows in verses 3-4. The repetition of the commission in verse 2, despite everything that has happened, is God's declaration that the mission continues and the word stands regardless of all the resistance that has met it so far.

The phrase "you shall speak all that I command you" carries the full weight of the "all that I say to you" standard from Exodus 6:29. Moses is to transmit completely, without omission or modification. Aaron is to transmit what Moses speaks, with the same completeness. The chain of speech through which YHWH addresses Pharaoh is a chain of perfect transmitters, each accountable for total fidelity. The consequence of tampering with the word at any link is the corruption of what reaches Pharaoh. The commission of verse 2 is a commission of communication fidelity as much as it is a commission of mission.