{E2 Dictionary of Biblical People}
AARON (air' uhn) HEBREW: AHARON meaning uncertain _______________
Although he plays a major role in the early history of the Israelites, Aaron always stands in the shadow of his charismatic younger brother, Moses. Moreover, the closer to Moses he stands, the more Aaron's stature rises; whenever he opposes his brother, it plummets.
Aaron first appears in the biblical narrative at the age of 83, trekking from Egypt into the Sinai desert to find Moses, who had left the land of his birth 40 years earlier. Little is known of the first eight decades of Aaron's life. He was born in Egypt, perhaps about 1360 B.C., to a couple from the tribe of Levi named Amram and Jochebed. Aaron had an older sister, Miriam, who helped save the life of the infant Moses while Aaron was still a toddler. She stood guard when Jochebed put her baby in a basket at river's edge to escape Pharaoh's new death warrant against male Hebrew infants.
According to the genealogy in Exodus 6:16-20, Aaron's father, Amram, was the son of Kohath and a grandson of the patriarch Levi. Amram married his father's sister Jochebed - a union that would later be prohibited by Mosaic Law but was that apparently legal. Some believe that such biblical genealogies need not be taken literally, and that Aaron and his siblings were simply descendants of Amram and Jochebed, since the family of Amram seems to have been a large clan at the time of the Exodus and since some passages date the Exodus to four centuries after the time of Levi. In the book of Numbers, however, it is said that "Jochebed the daughter of Levi... bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and Miriam their sister" (Num. 26:59).
An elder son, Aaron evidently came to maturity as the leader of his own prominent family and perhaps of the entire tribe of Levi. The younger Moses probably seemed lost to his family and people after he was rescued from the river bank and taken into the house of Pharaoh's daughter. This would have been especially true after he fled from Egypt to avoid punishment for murdering an Egyptian and remained absent for decades. Aaron, however, stayed with his people all through the period of their oppressive slavery to the Egyptians and became known as an eloquent spokesman for the Israelites.
Married to a woman named Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab, a leader of the tribe of Judah, Aaron had four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Later Jewish tradition contains stories of Aaron's long experience as a prophet and peacemaker among the Hebrews in Egypt. Unlike the hot-blooded Moses, Aaron pursued reconciliation and avoided disputes. Thus, a saying in the famous first-century B.C. rabbi Hillel urged, "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving one's fellow men and bringing them nigh to the Torah."
COMMISSIONED BY THE LORD Aaron's life changed dramatically at the moment God spoke to him in Egypt: "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses" (Ex. 4:27). Though Moses seemed to have settled permanently among the Midianites, a tribe of sheepherders in the Sinai Peninsula, Aaron heeded God's command and traveled into the wilderness, all the way out to "the mountain of God" (Ex. 4:27) - Mount Sinai - to find his long lost brother. And when he found him, he joyfully greeted Moses with a kiss. Moses told him the amazing story that God had commissioned him to deliver the Israelites from slavery, and together the brothers returned to Egypt.
After his 40 years' absence, Moses would have been remembered by few if any among Israel's leaders as a man who had stood among the privileged of Egypt. Aaron therefore took the lead in presenting Moses, who was "slow of speech and of tongue" (Ex. 4:10), to the elders of Israel, putting his own eloquence and his talent for leading at the service of his younger brother and his sacred mission from the Lord. Aaron set out to convince the Hebrew elders, who had never known God to intervene on their behalf in times of hardship, that at long last God had heard their cries. By signs given by God to Moses - turning his staff into a serpent and back, causing his hand to appear leprous and then cleansed - Aaron showed them that God had sent a deliverer, this unlikely man Moses, who had been so long absent from them. In spite of any skepticism on the part of his audience, Aaron was successful: "the people believed" (Ex. 4:31).
Next Aaron and Moses went before Pharaoh - probably Ramses II (1292-1225 B.C.) - to voice the demand of God: "Let my people go" (Ex. 5:1). Aaron served as Moses' prophet, speaking the words and repeating the signs that God had given to Moses. Although Egyptian magicians were able to match his feat of turning a rod into a serpent, "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods" (Ex. 7:12). Nonetheless, Pharaoh refused to be swayed by the demands or by the signs wrought by Aaron and Moses.
AT LONG LAST, FREEDOM It took ten plagues to force Pharaoh to submit to God's will. First, Aaron stretched his rod over the waters of Egypt and they became blood. But Pharaoh did not relent. Nor did Pharoah capitulate to subsequent plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, a disease that took the Egyptian cattle, boils that afflicted both men and beasts, hail and lightning, locusts, and a darkness lasting three days. "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," the biblical narrative reveals, "and he would not let them go" (Ex. 10:27). However, the last plague - the death of all the firstborn in Egypt - brought such horror that the Egyptians drove the Israelites from the land.
Once the refugees had crossed into the harsh desert of the Sinai Peninsula, Aaron continued his role as Moses' spokesman and principal aide. Hungry and thirsty, the people became disheartened and "murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness." Moses asked his brother to speak, and as he did so, "the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud" (Ex. 16:2,10); the people saw God would care for them, sending miraculous bread called manna and unexpected flocks of quail.
Soon, the Israelites were attacked by desert tribesmen called Amalek, and again Exodus records a miraculous deliverance. While Joshua led Israel's warriors, Moses stood on a hilltop holding aloft "the rod of God" (Ex. 17:9); as long as he did so, the Israelites prevailed. When Moses could no longer hold his arms up, Aaron and Hur, another of Moses' lieutenants, supported them till the victory was won. The scene of Aaron holding up the arms of Moses is perhaps a fitting symbol of the elder brother's entire life.
The long accounts in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers of Israel's encampment at Mount Sinai show both positive and negative elements of Aaron's character. When God manifested himself in thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai, Aaron was the first after Moses to be summoned to the mountain. As the revelations on the mountain continued, Aaron and his two eldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, joined Moses and 70 elders of Israel to experience a remarkable epiphany in which "they saw the God of Israel" (Ex. 24:10) and shared a meal celebrating their covenant with the Lord in the divine presence.
Sometime after this revelation, Moses again ascended Mount Sinai, leaving Aaron and Hur in charge of the people during the 40 days he was absent. The laws Moses received included detailed specifications for the investiture of Aaron and his sons as the priests of Israel. In addition, Moses was instructed to commission "holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty" (Ex. 28:2), and he received commands concerning Aaron's anointing and the sacrifices of ordination that were to be offered in the new tabernacle - a portable altar they were to build.
THE GOLDEN CALF Ironically, it was at that very time that Aaron and the people were undermining their entire relationship with God. Failing to comprehend the revelations of God that were occurring on the mountain, the Israelites grew impatient as they waited day after day for Moses to return. They came to Aaron demanding idols such as they would have seen in Egypt: "Make us gods, who shall go before us" (Ex. 32:1). At this crucial moment, Aaron utterly failed as Moses' spokesman, unable to explain to them why their demand was impossible. Rather, he joined in their apostasy, gathering their gold - probably booty taken from Egypt - and fashioning it into a calf or young bull. In a parody of the beginning of the Ten Commandments, the cry went up that this was the god who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Aaron tried to salvage this disaster somewhat by identifying the bullock as an image of Israel's true God, and he proclaimed a feast to the Lord for the following day. But he had already gone too far.
Moses, burning with anger, descended the mountain and confronted his brother incredulously: "What did this people do to you that you have brought a great sin upon them?" (Ex. 32:21). Aaron tried lame excuses but could not escape his guilt. At that moment Moses revealed his true greatness: Despite his outrage at the sins of both Aaron and the people, he asked God to forgive them and even restored Aaron to his role as a leader of the people.
The book of Leviticus records how Aaron and his sons were ordained as priests with all the solumnity and beauty that God had commanded. But tragedy befell Aaron's family in the process. His eldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, presumptuously ignored the laws of holiness God had prescribed for sacrifices in his sanctuary and were miraculously destroyed by fire. The chastened Aaron "held his peace" (Lev. 10:3) as he accepted God's judgement.
Aaron's new role as the chief priest of Israel, however, may have undermined his willingness to accept the leadership of his younger brother. Aaron and Miriam, who had both been designated as prophets of the Lord, challenged Moses' right to act as God's unique spokesman. But the Lord defended Moses emphatically by striking Miriam with leprosy, though he spared Aaron so that he could continue to function as a priest. Aaron showed his penitence by pleading with Moses on behalf of Miriam, and at Moses' request God soon healed her. Thereafter, Aaron and Miriam stood firmly with Moses to the end of their lives.
Numbers relates that God later confirmed his choice of Aaron and the tribe of Levi in their priestly duties through another remarkable miracle. Wooden rods representing Aaron and the other heads of the tribes were placed overnight before the ark of the covenant. Entering the tent of meeting the next morning, Moses saw that "the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds, and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds" (Num. 17:8). No one could doubt Aaron's diving calling to be the Lord's priest.
Aaron's faithfulness to Moses also brought its problems. The harsh years of wandering in the Sinai desert repeatedly caused the Hebrews to complain about the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Once, God promised miraculously to provide for the thirst wanderers by having Moses command a certain rock to give water. Moses and Aaron stood together before the unhappy people and, in exasperation at the incipent revolt, Moses used his rod and twice struck the rock, saying, "Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?" (Num. 20:10). Supported by Aaron, Moses had used God's gracious miracle to assert his own power and authority. As a result, the Lord ruled that neither Aaron nor Moses would be allowed to accompany the people into the Promised Land.
A few years later, as the 40 years of wandering drew to a close and the people came to Mount Hor near Edom, south of Canaan, God's judgement on the elder brother was finally carried out. In full priestly regalia, the 123-year-old Aaron climbed the mountain with his son Eleazar and Moses. Removing the high priest's vestments from Aaron, Moses put them on his nephew, and "Aaron died there on the top of the mountain" (Num. 20:28). Learning of Aaron's death, the people mourned for 30 days.
Later generations looked back to Moses as a unique figure without and real successor. Aaron, however, began a priestly dynasty that in spite of many vagaries continued more than a thousand years, till the Romans put an end to temple worship then they captured and destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70.