Who was Aaron?
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| Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh (painting by Benjamin West) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Aaron first appears in the Exodus narrative as ‘Aaron the Levite’ who went to meet his brother Moses on the latter’s return to Egypt after the theophany at the burning bush; because of his superior eloquence he was to be Moses’ spokesman to the Israelites and to Pharaoh (Ex. 4:14 ff.). Throughout his career he was very much a lay figure alongside his dynamic brother; on the one occasion when he acted independently of Moses’ instructions he acted wrongly (Ex. 32:1–6). In addition to being Moses’ spokesman he also filled a thaumaturgic role: it was he who wielded the rod which became a serpent and swallowed up the rod-serpents of the Egyptian magicians (Ex. 7:8 ff.) and which, when he stretched it out, turned the Nile into blood and then brought forth the successive plagues of frogs and gnats (Ex. 7:19; 8:5 f., 16 f.).
After the crossing of the Sea of Reeds Aaron was one of Moses’ two supporters during the battle with the Amalekites (Ex. 17:8ff.), and ascended Mt Sinai in his company (Ex. 19:24), together with his sons, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel; there they had a Vision of the God of Israel and shared a meal in his presence (Ex. 24:9–10ff.). On the next occasion, however, when Moses went up Mt Sinai attended by Joshua only (Ex. 24:12ff.), Aaron was persuaded by the people to make a visible image of the divine presence and fashioned the golden bull-calf, thus incurring Moses’ severe displeasure (Ex. 32:1ff.). His formula of presentation of the bull-calf to the people, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ (Ex. 32:4), provided a precedent for Jeroboam I when he installed the golden bull-calves at Bethel and Dan (1 Ki. 12:28).
In the priestly legislation of the Pentateuch Aaron is installed as high priest and his sons as priests, to minister in the wilderness tabernacle (Ex. 28:1ff.; Lv. 8:1ff.). Aaron is anointed with holy oil and is henceforth ‘the anointed priest’ (Lv. 4:3, etc.; cf. the oil on Aaron’s beard in Ps. 133:2). He and his sons receive special vestments, but Aaron’s are distinctive. The headband of his turban is inscribed ‘Holy to Yahweh’ (Ex. 28:36); his scapular (ephod) incorporates a breastpiece with twelve jewels (one for each tribe) and accommodation for the Urim and Thummim, the objects with which the sacred lot was cast to ascertain Yahweh’s will for his people (Ex. 28:15ff.).
The outstanding day of the year for Aaron (and for each ‘anointed priest’ who succeeded him) was the Day of Atonement (Tishri 10), when he passed through the curtain separating the outer compartment of the sanctuary (the holy place) from the inner (the holy of holies) and presented the blood of an expiatory sacrifice in the latter for the sins of the people (Lv. 16:1ff.). On this occasion he did not wear his colourful vestments of ‘glory and beauty’ but a white linen robe.
Aaron’s wife was Elisheba, of the tribe of Judah. Their elder sons Nadab and Abihu died in the wilderness after using ‘unholy fire’ for the incense-offering (Lv. 10:1ff.); from their two surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, rival priestly families later traced their descent (1 Ch. 24:3).
Despite Aaron’s status, Moses remained Yahweh’s prophet to Israel and Israel’s prevailing intercessor with Yahweh, and this excited the envy of Aaron and Miriam (Nu. 12:1ff.). Aaron himself (with Moses) attracted the envy of other Levitical families, whose leader was Korah (Nu. 16:1ff.). Their doubts about Aaron’s privileges were answered by the phenomenon of *Aaron’s rod.
Aaron, like Moses, was debarred from entering Canaan at the end of the wilderness wanderings; he died and was buried on Mt Hor, on the Edomite border, and his functions and vestments passed to Eleazar (Nu. 20:22ff.).
The priesthood in Israel came to be known comprehensively as ‘the sons of Aaron’. The ‘sons of Zadok’, who served as priests in the Jerusalem Temple from its dedication under Solomon to 171 bc (apart from the hiatus of the Babylonian exile), are incorporated into the family of Aaron, among the descendants of Eleazar, in the genealogy of 1 Ch. 6:1ff. 10 years after the abolition of the Zadokite priesthood Alcimus, appointed high priest by the Seleucid authorities, was recognized by the Hasidaeans as ‘a priest of the line of Aaron’ (1 Macc. 7:12ff.), his genealogy being reckoned perhaps through Ithamar. Ben Sira pronounces Aaron’s encomium in Ecclus. 45:6ff. The men of Qumran formed a community of ‘Israel and Aaron’, i.e. of Jewish laymen and priests (CD 1:7), the priests constituting an ‘Aaronic holy of holies’ (1QS 8:5f., 8f.), and looked forward to the coming of an Aaronic (priestly) Messiah alongside the (lay) ‘Messiah of Israel’ (1QS 9:11; CD 12:23f.; 20:1).
In NT Aaron is named as the ancestor of Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist (Lk. 1:5), and receives incidental mention in Stephen’s retrospect of the history of Israel (Acts 7:40). The writer to the Hebrews contrasts Aaron’s circumscribed and hereditary priesthood with the perfect and perpetual ministry of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary (Heb. 5:4; 7:11, etc.).
Bibliography. R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel2, 1965, pp. 345–401.
F. F. Bruce.
