Aaron

Aaron was a son of Amram and Jochebed from the tribe of Levi and the older brother of Moses. Exodus also places their sister Miriam within the family, but it does not narrate Aaron’s birth or childhood. His wife was Elisheba, and their four sons were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Aaron first acts in the story when he is already more than eighty years old. As Moses hesitated to return to Egypt because he did not speak well, God said that Aaron the Levite could speak and was already coming to meet his brother.

God told Aaron to go into the wilderness to meet Moses. Aaron found him at the mountain of God and kissed him, then heard the words and signs Moses had received. Together the brothers gathered Israel’s elders. Aaron spoke the message Moses gave him and performed signs before the people. When the Israelites heard that God had seen their suffering, they believed and worshiped. Aaron’s first task was not to announce a plan of his own. He was to become Moses’ mouth, carrying a message entrusted to his brother before the people and Pharaoh.

Aaron was eighty-three and Moses was eighty when they stood before Pharaoh. They demanded that Israel be released to serve God in the wilderness. Pharaoh responded by withholding straw for brickmaking while requiring the same production, and the people’s suffering grew worse. Israelite supervisors were beaten, and the people blamed Moses and Aaron. The brothers returned to Pharaoh as the Nile water turned to blood and plagues of frogs, swarming insects, livestock disease, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness followed. In several scenes Aaron threw down his staff or stretched out his hand over water and land. His staff swallowed the staffs of Pharaoh’s magicians.

As the plagues continued, Pharaoh repeatedly appeared to yield under pressure and then reversed himself. He proposed that Israel sacrifice within Egypt, travel only a short distance, take only the men, or leave the livestock behind. Moses and Aaron did not withdraw the demand that the old and young, sons and daughters, flocks and herds all go. Aaron’s individual words are not preserved at every stage, but Exodus repeatedly places the brothers together as they entered and left Pharaoh’s presence under God’s command. Release came not through a single successful appeal but after a long sequence of refusal, disaster, and broken concessions.

Before the final plague, Moses and Aaron gave the congregation the instructions for Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Each household was to prepare a lamb, place its blood on the doorway, and eat the meat with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. On the night Egypt’s firstborn died, Pharaoh summoned the brothers and ordered them to lead the people away. Aaron traveled with Israel through the sea and beyond the pursuing Egyptian army, although Scripture does not preserve words from him in that scene. His public work shifted from demanding freedom in Egypt to sharing responsibility for a community in the wilderness.

In the wilderness Aaron heard the people’s complaints alongside Moses. When they protested that there was no food, the brothers said the complaint was ultimately directed at God, not at them. When Amalek attacked at Rephidim, Joshua fought below while Moses held up his hands on a hill. As Moses tired, Aaron and Hur placed a stone under him and supported his hands until sunset. Aaron later went up Sinai with Moses, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel, where they ate and drank in God’s presence. He served not only by speaking but also by supporting the burden placed on the community’s leaders.

At Sinai, God told Moses to set apart Aaron and his sons to serve as priests. Aaron was to wear an ephod, breastpiece, robe, patterned tunic, turban, and sash. Stones representing Israel’s twelve tribes were set on the breastpiece so that Aaron would carry their names when he entered the holy place. A plate marking holiness was fixed to the front of the turban. These garments were more than decorations for personal honor. They made visible the responsibility of representing the people in holy service and the limits that belonged to that office.

Before that priestly service began, however, Aaron stood at the center of a grave failure. When Moses remained on the mountain, the people asked Aaron to make gods to lead them. Aaron collected their gold earrings, fashioned a calf, built an altar before it, and announced a festival for the next day. The people offered sacrifices, ate, drank, and rose to revel. When Moses returned and demanded an explanation, Aaron spoke of the people’s evil and said that he had thrown the gold into the fire and the calf came out. The account had already said that he shaped the gold with a tool, so his answer did not fully describe his own action.

Years later Moses recalled that God had been angry enough with Aaron to destroy him and that Moses had prayed for Aaron as well. The golden-calf episode cannot be reduced to a scene in which the crowd pressured him. Aaron himself faced judgment and needed another person’s intercession. Yet his story did not end there. He went on to hold an office in which he brought offerings for himself and for the people. To understand the life of Aaron as priest, his garments and authority have to be held together with this scene of responsibility and needed mercy.

Moses destroyed the calf and pleaded concerning the people’s sin. The work of establishing the tabernacle and priesthood then moved forward. Before the congregation, Moses washed Aaron and his four sons, dressed them in the appointed garments, and anointed Aaron for service. Sin, burnt, and ordination offerings were presented, and the priests remained at the tent entrance for seven days. On the eighth day Aaron offered sacrifices for himself and the people and raised his hands to bless them. After Moses and Aaron entered and came out of the tent, God’s glory appeared and fire consumed the offering. The man who had made the calf received priestly office, but he had to exercise it within commands he did not set for himself.

On the day that service began, Aaron lost two sons. Nadab and Abihu presented unauthorized fire before God, and fire came out and consumed them. Moses spoke to Aaron about God being shown holy among those who came near. Aaron remained silent. He and his surviving sons were told not to display the usual signs of mourning or leave the tent. That same day Moses became angry because a sin-offering goat had been burned rather than eaten. Aaron asked whether eating it after what had happened would have been right. Moses heard his answer and accepted it.

After the death of his sons, Aaron was told that he could not enter the innermost sanctuary whenever he wished. On the appointed day he had to present a sin offering first for himself and his household and then offerings for the people. One of two goats was sacrificed, while Israel’s sins were confessed over the other before it was sent into the wilderness. Aaron was to cover the atonement cover with incense smoke and sprinkle blood, making atonement for himself, his household, and the congregation. The high priesthood was not permission to possess the holy place. Aaron could represent the people only after an offering for his own sin and only at the appointed time and in the appointed way.

Aaron’s leadership was also tested in his relationship with Moses. Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses concerning the Cushite woman he had married and asked whether God had spoken only through him. God called all three to the tent and distinguished the direct way he spoke with Moses from the way he addressed other prophets. When the cloud lifted, Miriam was afflicted with a severe skin disease and had turned white as snow. Aaron admitted that he and Miriam had acted foolishly and sinned, and he asked Moses not to let her die. Moses cried out for her healing. Miriam remained outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until she returned.

When the people heard the scouts’ report from Canaan and proposed returning to Egypt under a new leader, Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly. Joshua and Caleb urged the people not to fear the land, but the congregation threatened to stone them. God announced judgment, and Moses pleaded for pardon by speaking of what Egypt and the surrounding peoples would hear. Even after the sentence was given, a group defied the warning, went into the hill country, and was defeated. Aaron gave no separate speech in this crisis, but he is remembered as the leader who fell beside Moses before a community preparing to reverse the exodus.

When Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and their company challenged the leadership of Moses and Aaron and the limits of the priesthood, the brothers fell facedown. After the rebels were judged, the congregation accused Moses and Aaron of killing God’s people, and a plague began. Moses told Aaron to take fire from the altar with incense and hurry into the assembly. Aaron ran out and made atonement, standing between the dead and the living until the plague stopped. In this scene he did not withdraw from the people who opposed him. He entered the danger and performed the priestly duty entrusted to him.

Another test followed the complaints about the priesthood. A staff for each tribal leader was placed in the tent. By the next day Aaron’s staff for Levi had sprouted, blossomed, and produced almonds. It was kept as a sign meant to end the rebellion. Aaron and his sons carried responsibility for the sanctuary and altar and had to prevent unauthorized people from approaching. Their office brought not only authority to represent the people but accountability for the handling of sacred things. The image of a staff appeared in the scenes before Pharaoh and appeared again here, where Aaron’s assigned service within Israel was confirmed.

At Kadesh the people quarreled with Moses and Aaron because they had no water. The brothers fell facedown at the tent entrance. God told Moses to take the staff and speak to the rock before the assembly. Instead, Moses addressed the people as rebels and struck the rock twice while Aaron stood with him. Water came out, but God said that both men had failed to trust him and uphold him as holy before Israel. Neither would bring the congregation into the promised land. The text does not record Aaron adding words at the rock, yet the judgment was pronounced on both brothers.

Aaron’s last scene began when Israel reached Mount Hor near the border of Edom. Because Aaron had joined the disobedience at the waters of Meribah, God said that he would not enter the land but would be gathered to his people. Moses took Aaron and Eleazar up the mountain. There he removed Aaron’s priestly garments and put them on Eleazar, and Aaron died on the summit. It was the first day of the fifth month in the fortieth year after the exodus, and Aaron was one hundred twenty-three. When Moses and Eleazar returned without him, the whole community understood that Aaron had died and mourned for thirty days. His office continued through his son, but Aaron’s own biblical story ended on Mount Hor.