Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Exodus, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
God’s Identity and Power
Redemption and Deliverance
The Covenant
Mediators and the Priesthood
Summary
Analysis
The LORD tells Moses that he has made Moses “like God” to Pharaoh, and Aaron will be Moses’s prophet. When God speaks to Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron, God will harden Pharaoh’s heart and perform signs and wonders in Egypt. Then he will bring the Israelites out of Egypt, and the Egyptians will know that he is the LORD. At this time, Moses is 80 years old and Aaron is 83.
God reaffirms what he’s already told Moses—that he’ll speak to Pharaoh through Moses, Aaron will serve as the spokesman, and Pharaoh won’t cooperate. Though God doesn’t explain how, God makes clear that he will somehow perform his work through amplifying Pharaoh’s resistance in order to ultimately show Pharaoh once and for all that he is truly God (recall Pharaoh’s protest in chapter 5 that he doesn’t know God).
Themes
The LORD commands Moses and Aaron to go before Pharaoh and perform the wonder of the staff becoming a snake, so they do. Seeing this, Pharaoh calls his wise men and sorcerers, and these magicians accomplish the same wonder. Aaron’s snake gobbles up the magicians’ snakes. Nevertheless, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, and he doesn’t listen.
Moses and Aaron reprise the snake-to-staff miracle, this time to persuade Pharaoh of God’s power. Pharaoh’s “magicians” were probably priests of some kind who served the Egyptian gods. Even though these magicians can perform feats equivalent to Aaron’s, Aaron’s miraculous snake overwhelms theirs—demonstrating that their God is more powerful than Egypt’s gods.
Themes
The LORD tells Moses that because Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he must approach Pharaoh beside the Nile tomorrow and perform a wonder—striking the water with his staff and turning it into blood. By this sign, God tells him, Pharaoh will know that he is the LORD. Aaron must also extend his staff over all the bodies of water in Egypt so that they, too, will become blood. When Moses and Aaron do these things, all the fish in the river die, and the Nile’s water becomes undrinkable. But when Pharaoh’s magicians perform the same wonder, his heart remains hardened. Seven days pass.
After the first sign fails to convince Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron bring the first of ten plagues with which God will afflict Egypt: turning Egypt’s precious water sources into blood. This plague is not only a demonstration of God’s power, but an expression of God’s judgment that causes all Egyptians to suffer. God fulfills what he threatened to do in chapter 4—if Pharaoh causes God’s children to suffer, then a similar threat will befall Pharaoh’s.
Themes
