Aaron spake. Aaron at once entered on his office of "spokesman" (Exodus 4:16), declaring to the elders all God's dealings with his brother. Aaron also, and not Moses, us we should have expected (Exodus 4:17), did the signs, God, by allowing him to do them, sanctioning this delegation of power.
On later occasions, we find Aaron more than once required by God to work the miracles. (See below, Exodus 7:19; Exodus 8:5, Exodus 8:16.) In the sight of the people. It is not probable that the people were present at the first meeting of the elders; but the sacred historian, anxious to compress his narrative, and bent simply on conveying to us the fact of Aaron's success with both elders and people, omits stages in the history which he supposes that any reader can supply, e.
g. the doing of the signs in the sight of the elders, their belief in them, and their subsequent assembling of the people.