Aaron
At the battle with Amalek he is chosen with Hur to support the hand of Moses that held the "rod of God" (Ex. xvii. 9 et seq.). When the revelation was given to Moses at Sinai, he headed the elders of Israel who accompanied Moses on the way to the summit. Joshua, however was admitted with his leader to the very presence of the Lord, while Aaron and Hur remained below to look after the people (Ex. xxiv. 9-14). It was during the prolonged absence of Moses that Aaron yielded to the clamors of the people, and made a golden calf as a visible image of the divinity who had delivered them from Egypt (Ex. xxxii. 1-6). At the intercession of Moses, Aaron was saved from the plague which smote the people (Deut. ix. 20; Ex. xxxii. 35), although it was Aaron’s tribe of Levi that the work of punitive vengeance was committed (Ex. xxxii. 26 et seq.). Becomes
Priest of
Israel. At the time when the tribe of Levi was set apart for priestly service. Aaron was anointed and consecrated to the priesthood, arrayed in the robes of his office, and instructed in its manifold duties (Ex. xxviii. and xxix.). On the very day of his consecration his sons, Nadab and Abihu, were consumed by fire form the Lord for having offered incense in an unlawful manner (Lev. x.). This stroke Aaron bore in silence.
From the time of the sojourn at Sinai, where he became the anointed priest of Israel, Aaron ceased to be the minister of Moses, his place being taken by Joshua. He is mentioned in association with Miriam in a jealous complaint against the exclusive claims of Moses as the Lord's prophet. The presumption of the murmurers was rebuked, and Miriam was smitten with leprosy. Aaron entrated Moses to intercede for her, at the same time confessing the sin and folly that prompted the uprising. Aaron himself was not struck with the plague on account of sacerdotal immunity; and Miriam, after seven days' quarantine, was healed and restored to favor (Num. xii.). It is noteworthy that the prophet Micah (vi. 4) mentions Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as the leaders of Israel after the Exodus (a judgment wholly in accord with the tenor of the narratives). In the present instance it is made clear by the express words of the oracle (Num. xii. 6-8) that Moses was unique amoing men as the one whom the Lord spoke face to face. The failure to recognize or concede this prerogative of their brother was the sin of Miriam and Aaron. The validity of the exclusive priesthood of the family of Aaron was attested after the ill-fated rebellion of Korah, Rebellion of Korah. who was a first cousin of Aaron. When the earth had opened and swallowed up the leaders of the insurgents (Num. vxi. 25-35), Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was commissioned to take charge of the censers of the dead priests. And when the plague had broken out among the people who had sympathized with the rebels, Aaron, at the command of Moses, took his censer and stood between the living and the dead till the plague was stayed (Num. xvii. 1-15, xvi. 36-50, A.V.). Another memorable transaction followed. Each of the tribal princes of Israel took a rod and wrote his name upon it, and the twelve rods were laid up over night in the tent of meeting. On the morrow Aaron's rod was found to have budded and blossomed and borne ripe almonds (Num. xvii. 8; see Aaron's Rod). The miracle proved merely the prerogative of the tribe of Levi; but now a formal distinction was made in perpetuity between the family of Aaron and the other Levites. While the Levites (and only Levites) were to be devoted to sacred services, the special charge of sanctuary and the altar was committed to the Aaronites alone (Num. xviii. 1-7). The scene of this enactment is unknown, nore is the time mentioned.
Aaron, like Moses, was not permitted to enter Canaan with the successful invaders. The reason alleged is that the two brothers showed impatience at Meribah (Kadesh) in the last year of the desert pilgrimage (Num. xx. 12, 13), when they, or rather, Moses, brought water out of a rock to quench the thirst of the people. The action was construed as displaying a want in deference to the Lord, since they had been commanded to speak to the rock, whereas Moses struck it with the wonder-working rod (Num. xx. 7-11). Of the death of Aaron we have two accounts. Death. The principal one gives a detailed statement to the effect that, soon after the above incident, Aaron, with his son Eleazar and Moses, ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped him (Aaron) of his priestly garments, and transferred them to Aleazar. Aaron died on the summit of the mountain, and the people mourned for him thirty days (Num. xx. 22-29; compare xxxiii. 38, 39). The other account is found in Deut. x. 6, where Moses is reported as saying that Aaron died at Mosera. and was buried there. Mosera is not on Mount Hor, since the itinerary in Num. xxxiii. 31-37 records seven stages between Moseroth (Mosera) and Mount Hor.
In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature: The older prophets and prophetical writers beheld in their priests the representatives of a religious form inferior to the prophetic truth;Typical
Significa-
tion. men without the spirit of God and lacking the will-power requisite to resist the multitude in its idolatrous proclivities. Thus Aaron, the typical priest, ranks far below Moses; he is but his mouthpiece, and the executor of the will of God revealed through Moses, although it is pointed (Sifra, Wa-yiḳra, i.) that it is said fifteen times in the Pentateuch that "the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron." Under the influence of the priesthood which shaped the destinies of the nation under Persian rule, a different ideal of the priest was formed, as is learned from Mal. ii. 4-7; and the prevailing tendency was to place Aaron on a footing equal with Moses. "At times Aaron, and at other times Moses, is mentioned first in scripture—this is to show that they were of equal rank," says Mekilta בא, 1; and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), xlv. 6-24, expressly infers this when introducing in his record of renowned men the glowing description of Aaron’s ministration. According to Tan. (ed. Buber, ii. 12), Aaron’s activity as a prophet began earlier than that of Moses. The writer of the Testaments of the Patriarchs, however, hesitates to rank Moses the faithful, "him that speaks with God as with a father," as equal to Aaron (Testament of Levi, viii. 17). The rabbis are still more emphatic in their praise of Aaron’s virtues. This Hillel, who in Herod’s time saw before him mainly a degenerate class of priests, selfish and quarrelsome, held Aaron of old up as a mirrow, saying: Moses and
Aaron
Compared. "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace; love your fellow creatures and draw them nigh unto the Law!" (Abot, i. 12). This is further illustrated by the tradition preserved in Abot de-R. N. xii. Sanh. 6b, and elsewhere, according to which Aaron was an ideal priest of the people, far more beloved for his kindly ways than was Moses. While Moses was stern and uncompromising, brook-
