Aaron's Staff Swallows the Snakes

“As God to Pharaoh.” “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet” (7:1). This does not mean Moses became God. It means Moses would go to Pharaoh for God. He would speak God's words and show God's power. A prophet. A prophet is someone who speaks for God. Moses would receive God's words, and Aaron would say them out loud: “You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall tell Pharaoh” (7:2). It was the plan God had promised at the bush. Two old men. “And Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh” (7:7). Most people would think they were too old for a big job. God did not think so. Doing it God's way. “Then Moses and Aaron did so; just as the Lord commanded them, so they did” (7:6). Forty years earlier, Moses had tried to rescue Israel his own way. Now he does it exactly God's way.

“I have made you as God” (7:1). The Hebrew says, “I have given you as Elohim (say: eh-loh-HEEM) to Pharaoh.” Moses was not divine, but he would stand in God's place before the king, the way God had said at the bush: “you shall be to him as God” (4:16). Pharaoh, who was treated as a god by his people, would face a man who carried the authority of the true God. The prophet's role. Moses and Aaron show what a prophet is in the Old Testament: one who receives words from another and speaks them faithfully. Later God would promise, “I will raise up for them a Prophet like you… and will put My words in His mouth” (Deuteronomy 18:18), a promise the New Testament applies to Jesus (Acts 3:22). Doing what God says. “Just as the Lord commanded them, so they did” (7:6). Exodus says this again and again: at the Passover (12:28) and many times while the tabernacle is being built. The heroes God uses are not people who invent bold plans but people who do what God says. Eighty and eighty-three (7:7). Moses and Aaron were old men. This rescue would not depend on youthful strength. The leaders God chose had spent decades in slavery and in exile, and now, late in life, their real work was beginning.

Moses was still worried about talking. So God gave him a plan. God would give Moses His words and His power. Moses would tell Aaron what God said. Then Aaron would tell the king. That made Aaron a prophet. A prophet is someone who speaks God's message. God did not leave Moses to do it alone. God gave him a brother to help. Aaron was three years older than Moses. The two brothers would work together. God often gives us people to help us obey Him. Parents, teachers and friends can help us. And God Himself is always with us.

God gave Moses His power and His words. Aaron would speak for Moses. God gives us helpers too.

A hard heart. “And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not heed you” (7:3-4). God told Moses ahead of time that Pharaoh would keep saying no. Great judgments. God would “lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies and My people… out of the land of Egypt by great judgments” (7:4). The plagues would be God's judgment on a cruel nation that had enslaved and killed His people. The reason. “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord” (7:5). Pharaoh had said, “I do not know the Lord” (5:2). Now God was going to show him. The plagues were not only to free Israel. They were to show Egypt who the true God is. God wants to be known. Many years later God said through Isaiah, “Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22). God wants people from every nation to know Him, even nations that were once His people's enemies.

Hardening announced (7:3). God says, “I will harden Pharaoh's heart.” In the plagues the Bible describes Pharaoh's heart in three ways: God hardens Pharaoh's heart, Pharaoh hardens his own heart (8:15, 32), and Pharaoh's heart “grew hard” (7:13). All three are true, even when we cannot explain everything about how they fit. Pharaoh was responsible for his choices, and God was sovereign over them. What Paul teaches. Paul quotes God's word to Pharaoh in Romans 9:17: “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Paul is teaching that God is free to show mercy and to judge. We may not understand all of it, but God's Word is clear that His purposes are never defeated by human resistance. “My armies” (7:4). God calls Israel His tseva'ot (say: tseh-vah-OHT), “armies” or “hosts.” The slave people are described as an ordered army marching out under their King. The same word forms the title “Lord of hosts.” Knowledge as the goal (7:5). God says “know that I am the Lord” again and again through the plagues, sometimes to Egypt and sometimes to Israel. In the exodus God was showing the world His name. Isaiah 45:22 shows where that is heading: salvation offered to “all you ends of the earth.”

God told Moses what was coming. The king would not listen. So God would do many great miracles. Why would God do this? God said, “Egypt will know that I am the Lord.” The king had asked, “Who is the Lord?” Now God was going to answer him. God would not use words this time. He would show the king what He could do. Egypt had many fake gods. But there is only one true God. God wanted everyone to know Him. He still wants that today. He wants people everywhere to know Him and trust Him.

God said, “Egypt will know that I am the Lord.” Everyone would see how great God is. God wants everyone to know Him.

A sign for Pharaoh. God said Pharaoh would demand, “Show a miracle for yourselves” (7:9). So “Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent” (7:10). The magicians. “But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; so the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments” (7:11). The ICB calls it their “tricks.” God's Word does not tell us how they did it, but it does tell us who was stronger. Swallowed. “For every man threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods” (7:12). Egypt's magicians could copy the sign, but they could not stand against it. God's power ate up theirs. Why a serpent? Pharaohs wore the image of a cobra on their crowns as a sign of royal power. So when Aaron's rod swallowed the magicians' rods, it showed that the power of Egypt's king and his wise men was nothing next to the power of the Lord.

A different serpent (7:9-10). At the bush Moses' rod became a nachash (4:3). Here Aaron's rod becomes a tannin (say: tah-NEEN), a word used elsewhere for great sea creatures and even for a dragon-like power (Isaiah 27:1). The sign before Pharaoh was larger and more threatening. Egypt's wise men (7:11). The “wise men,” “sorcerers” and “magicians” were the religious experts of Egypt. Their “enchantments” (lahatim, say: lah-hah-TEEM) were secret arts. Paul later names two men who “resisted Moses,” Jannes and Jambres (2 Timothy 3:8), names known from Jewish tradition rather than from Exodus itself. Imitation and its limit. The magicians matched the first sign and the first two plagues, but they never reversed one. By the third plague they failed and admitted, “This is the finger of God” (8:19). Counterfeit power can imitate, but it cannot undo God's work or stand against it. The swallowing (7:12). The verb bala' (say: bah-LAH), to swallow, comes again at the sea: “the earth swallowed them” (15:12). The swallowing rod points ahead to the Red Sea. Whatever Egypt sends against God's people will be swallowed up.

God told Aaron to throw down his stick. It turned into a snake. Then the king's magicians did something strange. Their sticks turned into snakes too. They used secret tricks. But then Aaron's snake swallowed all of theirs! This showed that God is stronger. Their snakes were gone! Only Aaron's stick was left. The magicians could copy a little. But they could not beat God. Nobody can beat God, not even a king or a magician. There are many things that try to look powerful. But God is more powerful than all of them.

Aaron's stick became a snake. The magicians' sticks did too. But Aaron's snake swallowed them all! God is stronger.

Still no. “And Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had said” (7:13). Pharaoh saw God's power with his own eyes, and he still refused. What a hard heart is. In the Bible, the heart means the inside of a person: what they think, want and choose. A hard heart is one that will not listen to God, no matter what He shows. Who hardened it? God had said, “I will harden Pharaoh's heart” (7:3). Later the Bible also says Pharaoh “hardened his heart” himself (8:15). Both are true. Pharaoh kept choosing to say no, and God let him have what he chose. A warning for us. Hebrews says, “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15). Every time we say no to God, it gets a little easier to say no again. The good news is that God can give us a new heart: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26).

“Grew hard” (7:13). The verb here is chazaq (say: khah-ZAHK), to be strong or firm. Pharaoh's heart became firm in refusal. Other verses use kaved (say: kah-VED), to be heavy (for example 8:15), the same root as the word for glory. Pharaoh's heart became heavy with stubbornness, while God's glory became heavy, weighty, over Egypt. “As the Lord had said.” These words show that Pharaoh's stubbornness did not take God by surprise. God knew it beforehand and used it for His purpose. Human stubbornness is real, but it never has the last word. The pattern of hardening. Proverbs warns, “he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity” (Proverbs 28:14), and, “He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1). Pharaoh's life shows those proverbs coming true. The cure for hearts. The New Testament applies the warning to the church: “exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). The remedy is not willpower but a new heart, promised in Ezekiel 36:26 and given through the Spirit to those who are in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The king saw Aaron's snake win. He knew something special had happened. But he still would not listen. The Bible says his heart grew hard. A hard heart does not want to listen to God. It keeps saying no, no, no. Sometimes our hearts get hard too. Maybe we do not want to say sorry. Or we do not want to obey. We keep saying no to God. But we can ask God to help us. He can make our hearts soft again. A soft heart listens to God and obeys Him.

The king saw God's power. But his heart was hard. We can ask God to keep our hearts soft.