Keluaran 4:16

4:16 He ¹  will speak for you to the people, and it will be as if ²  he ³  were your mouth ⁴  and as if you were his God. ⁵ 

Keluaran 7:1

7:1 So the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God ⁶  to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. ⁷ 

Keluaran 22:28

22:28 “You must not blaspheme ⁸  God ⁹  or curse the ruler of your people.

[4:16]  ¹ tn The word “he” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.

[4:16]  ² tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity.

[4:16]  ³ tn Heb “and it will be [that] he, he will be to you for a mouth,” or more simply, “he will be your mouth.”

[4:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “he will be to you for a mouth.”

[4:16]  ⁵ tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity. The word “you” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.

[4:16]  sn Moses will be like God to Aaron, giving him the words to say, inspiring him as God would inspire a prophet. The whole process had now been removed one step. Instead of God speaking to Moses and Moses telling the people, Aaron would be the speaker for a while. But God was still going to work through Moses.

[7:1]  ⁶ tn The word “like” is added for clarity, making explicit the implied comparison in the statement “I have made you God to Pharaoh.” The word אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) is used a few times in the Bible for humans (e.g., Pss 45:6; 82:1), and always clearly in the sense of a subordinate to GOD – they are his representatives on earth. The explanation here goes back to 4:16. If Moses is like God in that Aaron is his prophet, then Moses is certainly like God to Pharaoh. Only Moses, then, is able to speak to Pharaoh with such authority, giving him commands.

[7:1]  ⁷ tn The word נְבִיאֶךָ (nÿvi’ekha, “your prophet”) recalls 4:16. Moses was to be like God to Aaron, and Aaron was to speak for him. This indicates that the idea of a “prophet” was of one who spoke for God, an idea with which Moses and Aaron and the readers of Exodus are assumed to be familiar.

[22:28]  ⁸ tn The two verbs in this verse are synonyms: קָלַל (qalal) means “to treat lightly, curse,” and אָרַר (’arar) means “to curse.”

[22:28]  ⁹ tn The word אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) is “gods” or “God.” If taken as the simple plural, it could refer to the human judges, as it has in the section of laws; this would match the parallelism in the verse. If it was taken to refer to God, then the idea of cursing God would be more along the line of blasphemy. B. Jacob says that the word refers to functioning judges, and that would indirectly mean God, for they represented the religious authority, and the prince the civil authority (Exodus, 708).