Aaron – Moses’ Brother, Spokesman, Priest

“The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. And she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and Miriam their sister.” –Numbers 26:59 (ESV). “Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, ‘Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.” –Exodus 4:14-15 (ESV). “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” –I Peter 2:9 (ESV).

When Moses was tending his father-in-law Jethro’s flock and God spoke to him through the burning bush to go back into Egypt and free the Israelite people from slavery, Moses had excuses to offer, one being that he could not speak. God countered every excuse Moses presented. For a spokesman, Moses’ older brother, the Levite, could speak well and, after Moses’ forty years in the wilderness, was even then coming to meet Moses. God’s arrangements were all in order for the union of brothers Moses and Aaron to the impossible-without-God task he had assigned these sons of Amram and Jochebed.

Here we touch only highlights of a union of brothers assigned to a mammoth job. Recalling their encounter with Pharaoh, they were able to perform miracles that confounded even the best of the Egyptian magicians (see Exodus 7:8 and following). These two brothers weren’t young when God called them: Aaron was eighty-three and Moses was eighty. We know how, after the ten terrible plagues that beset the Egyptians, the Israelites escaped and safely crossed the Red Sea. In the wilderness they still encountered troubles. A touching story is that of Aaron and Hur supporting Moses’ hands when Joshua was fighting the battle with the Amalekites: “Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and the other on the other side. So the hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshus overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.” (Exodus 17:11-13, ESV).

Aaron had the task of setting up the priestly role for the new nation, and he became the first high priest. But Aaron, even in his position of spiritual leader and advisor for the Israelites, did not always himself follow the direction of God. On record is the abominable golden calf recorded in Exodus 32. Moses was away a long time On Mount Sinai receiving the tables of the law from the Lord. The people murmured and complained and Aaron relented, using their gold to make a golden calf before which they danced and worshiped. After this fiasco, Moses himself prayed the high priestly prayer we find in Exodus 32: 32: “Yet now, if you will forgive their sin-but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” With all his human failings, Aaron stood as God’s representative at a crucial time in the history of God’s people. Think of the bravery and determination needed for the tasks God assigned to Moses and Aaron! According to the mandate of God, neither could enter the land intended for the Israelites. Aaron died on Mt. Hor at age 123 after passing his priestly office on to Eleazer, his son. His life and work gave a foretaste of the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who would come to forever be our bridge to God and allow believers to go directly to God for their own intercession and fellowship. (I Peter 2:9, ESV). Praise be to God!