Exodus 7:1–7

Exodus 7:1 — Moses as "God" to Pharaoh; Aaron as Prophet The audacity of this verse is easy to pass over. God does not simply say He will empower Moses — He says He has constituted him as God (Hebrew: ělōhîm) to Pharaoh. This is not a claim of divine ontology for Moses but a description of representational authority: Moses speaks with the full weight and sovereignty of the One who sends him. The relationship between Moses and Aaron is then defined in precise prophetic terms — Aaron is Moses' nābî' (prophet), the one who translates the interior word into audible speech. This mirrors the classical prophetic pattern wherein the prophet does not originate the word but relays it faithfully. The structure is hierarchical and deliberate: God → Moses → Aaron → Pharaoh, a chain of mediation that will govern all subsequent plague narratives.

Exodus 7:2 — The Scope of the Command "You shall speak all that I command you" — the word all is important. Moses is not given discretion to select which divine commands seem politically prudent. The totality of the divine word must be transmitted. The demand is equally total: "that he let the children of Israel go out of his land" — not a partial concession, not a three-day religious excursion (the compromise Pharaoh will repeatedly attempt), but a complete departure from the land. The theological stakes are set from the outset.

Exodus 7:3 — The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart This is one of the most theologically charged verses in the Torah. God announces that He will harden Pharaoh's heart — and this divine hardening is the very occasion for the multiplication of signs and wonders. Crucially, the hardening is announced before the plagues begin, which situates the entire narrative within God's sovereign foreknowledge and purpose. The Hebrew verb qāšāh (to make hard, stubborn) implies a settled, resistant disposition. Catholic exegesis, following both Augustine and Aquinas, distinguishes between God as cause of the hardening and God as permissive cause: Pharaoh's own pride and idolatry are not suppressed but confirmed and used. God does not infuse wickedness into Pharaoh; rather, He withdraws the softening grace that would have led to repentance, allowing Pharaoh's already-resistant will its full trajectory. This is not injustice but the mystery of divine sovereignty operating through human freedom.

Exodus 7:4 — "My Armies, My People" The language shifts dramatically here: Israel is called God's armies (ṣěbā'ōt), a military term that invests the enslaved, weaponless Hebrew people with the identity of a divine host. "By great judgments" (bišpāṭîm gědōlîm) frames the plagues not as natural disasters or magical performances but as judicial acts — verdicts pronounced against Egypt's oppression and idolatry. God is acting as Divine Judge.

Exodus 7:5 — The Goal: Revelation of the Divine Name The entire sequence of plagues is given its ultimate purpose here: "The Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh." Liberation is not only humanitarian — it is theophanic. The rescue of Israel is simultaneously a revelation to the nations. The divine name Yahweh, disclosed to Moses at the burning bush (Ex 3:14–15), is now to be proclaimed through acts of power to the most powerful empire on earth.

Exodus 7:6 — Obedience as Theology The narrative pause — "Moses and Aaron did so. As Yahweh commanded them, so they did" — is a liturgical formula of fidelity. It echoes the refrain of Genesis 1 and the construction of the Tabernacle (Ex 39–40). Obedience to the divine word is itself a form of theological participation in God's work.

Exodus 7:7 — The Ages of Moses and Aaron Moses is eighty; Aaron is eighty-three. These are not incidental biographical details. In biblical reckoning, eighty years represents a full life already completed (cf. Ps 90:10). The two brothers are not young visionaries but old men, humanly past their prime — which is precisely when God deploys them. This underscores that the coming deliverance is emphatically not a human achievement.

Catholic tradition reads this passage through several converging lenses that give it a depth unavailable to purely historical-critical analysis.

Typology of Moses and Christ. The Church Fathers consistently read Moses as a type (typos) of Christ. Origen (Homilies on Exodus, Hom. IV) notes that as Moses is constituted "as God" before Pharaoh, so Christ is the eternal Word made visible before a fallen world. Aaron as prophet-of-Moses prefigures John the Baptist preparing the way for the Word (cf. Jn 1:23). St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 102) situates this mediatorial structure within the divine economy of salvation as a whole.

The Hardening and Providence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§ 269, 303–305) affirms that divine Providence governs even the free choices of wicked persons without causing their sin. Augustine (Enchiridion, ch. 95–100) and Aquinas (ST I, q. 23) both argue that God's sovereign plan incorporates, but does not author, human resistance. The hardening of Pharaoh is thus a profound illustration of CCC § 312: "God permits evil in order to draw from it a greater good."

Liberation Theology and the Church's Social Teaching. The Exodus narrative is the foundational scriptural warrant for the Church's preferential option for the poor (CCC § 2448; Populorum Progressio, Paul VI). God's naming of Israel as "my people" and "my armies" is a divine commitment to the oppressed that the Church recognises as normative for her own mission.

The Divine Name and the Liturgy. God's stated purpose — that Egypt will know the name Yahweh — anticipates the entire biblical theology of divine-name revelation that reaches its fulfilment in the name of Jesus (Phil 2:9–11). The Congregation for Divine Worship's 2008 directive on the use of "Yahweh" in liturgy reflects the Church's reverence for this same divine name announced in Exodus.

For contemporary Catholics, Exodus 7:1–7 offers a bracing corrective to several cultural temptations. First, it challenges the illusion that God's servants must be impressive by worldly standards: Moses is eighty, a stutterer, a fugitive — yet God commissions him precisely in his inadequacy. When we feel unqualified for the work God asks of us, this passage is an invitation to stop auditing our own résumé.

Second, the passage confronts the modern instinct to soften the Gospel message to win a hearing. "You shall speak all that I command you" leaves no room for strategic omissions. Catholic preachers, catechists, parents, and evangelists are reminded that the totality of revealed truth is not negotiable.

Third, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart speaks to those who have prayed earnestly for the conversion of a loved one locked in stubborn resistance. God's sovereignty over even hardened hearts — and His capacity to draw greater goods from resistance — is a genuine pastoral comfort. We are called to faithful witness; the harvest belongs to God.

Finally, "Moses and Aaron did so" — the quiet, unremarkable note of obedience — suggests that heroic fidelity rarely announces itself. Much of the Christian life consists precisely in this: doing what God commands, without fanfare, one day at a time.