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!

Miriam, Sister of Moses

“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. “Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women, to nurse the child for you?’” –Exodus 2:7. “And Miriam sang to them ‘Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.’” –Exodus 15:21-22 (ESV).

We know Miriam best as the sister of Moses, the mighty leader of the children of Israel out of bondage and to freedom. She was also the sister of Aaron, the priest. In her own right, Miriam played a vital role in the Exodus story. Born in slavery, we see her as a young lass being set to look over the bulrush cradle of her little brother Moses. He was saved by the providence of God but there thinking fast and acting was Miriam, ready to do what she could to save her little brother. Can you imagine how frightened Miriam must have been when the Egyptian princess found Moses? Her reaction under pressure was phenomenal.

With all the plagues behind them, the exodus from Egypt and the triumphal crossing of the Red Sea, Miriam is seen as a leader. She leads the women to praise and dance on the safe side of the Red Sea. The words attributed to Miriam have been called “Mariam’s Song,” and they stand in our Bible as a pivotal point of praise to Jehovah God who has the power to deliver from enemies.

But Miriam did not always stand firm with what her brother Moses did. We read in Numbers 12:1-15 that Miriam and Aaron complained of Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman. To marry outside the Jewish lineage was highly frowned upon. God called all three of the siblings to go to the Tabernacle and there the Lord appeared and addressed Aaron and Miriam, reminding them that Moses had been entrusted with God’s ‘entire house,” (leading the household of Israel). “Should you not be afraid to criticize him?” the Lord asked in Numbers 12:8. Miriam was smitten with leprosy, a terrible skin malady considered by many cultures, and especially by the Jews, to be unclean. Moses prayed for Miriam, ‘Heal her, O God, I beg you!” (Num. 12:12). She had to be quarantined for a week, during which time the Israelites did not move forward. But God heard and answered Moses’ prayer for his sister. After Miriam’s health was restored, they traveled again, leaving Hazeroth and proceeding to the wilderness of Paran.

“In early spring, the people of Israel arrived in the wilderness of Zin, and camped at Kadesh. While they were there, Miriam died and was buried.” (Numbers 20:1, NLT). The prophet Micah had words of praise for the leadership of these three siblings at a time when the Israelites were complaining and had little patience. Here is his tribute to them: “For I brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from your slavery. I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to help you.” (Micah 6:4, NLT). At a time in history when women and their roles were not well considered, the prophet linked Miriam’s name alongside that of her brothers Moses and Aaron with the Lord’s purpose for Israel.

Miriam is an example of how one less-in-the-limelight than the leader is vital to God’s purpose. May we make the song of Miriam our own paean of praise: “Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously!” (Exodus 15;21a).

Jochebed, “Jehovah’s glory,” Chosen for a Mission

“Amram took as his wife Jochebed, his father’s sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being 137 years.” –Exodus 6:20. “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. “Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three month. When she could hide him no longer she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And the sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.” -Exodus 2:1-4 (ESV).

Jochebed is mentioned twice in the Bible by name—in Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59. In the account of her determination to save her baby’s life, her name is not given in Exodus 2. Her name means “Jehovah’s glory,” and certainly her acts in defiance of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s edict to have all the male Israelite babies killed was to prove Jehovah’s glory in the future. The baby she bore and saved from the death sentence had a very special place in God’s future plan for releasing the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.

Note how this remarkable story progresses in the Exodus account. In Exodus 1:22 is written the terrible law from Pharaoh: “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nilek, but you shall let every daughter live.” The very next verse records the birth of a child who, because of a mother’s clever plan, escapes this death sentence. Many of the Hebrew women defied the Pharaoh’s order and did not use the Egyptian midwives at the time of birth. This, of course, angered the Pharaoh. Jochebed, who loved and wanted to keep her baby from harm, devised a way to hide him in a waterproof basket afloat on the Nile, the very river into which the midwives had been commanded to cast the newborn sons of the Israelites to their death. Would the basket be a safe place? It was the hope Jochebed had of saving her son. Much rested on young Miriam, too, as she was set to watch her baby brother from a distance. And when Pharaoh’s daughter saw the comely baby, she wanted him for her very own. But how would she feed him? Again, Mariam was quick to suggest a Hebrew nurse, and Jochebed had the distinct privilege of both physically and spiritually nurturing her son Moses. We are told in Exodus 2:9 that the Egyptian princess even promised to pay wages for this service. The thought has entered my mind, “Did Pharaoh not check on his daughter more closely to see what she was doing?” But then I reason that two causes were at work: The Pharaoh probably had several wives, even a harem, and maybe many daughters. It was not likely that he personally supervised what a single daughter did. She could adopt a Hebrew child and he would hardly know about it. But the overriding cause here is God’s will. He had a future purpose for the baby whom the Egyptian princess named Moses, “drawn out of the water.” Saved from death and drowning, Moses would draw the Israelite slaves from the clutches of Egyptian bondage and lead them to freedom and into God’s purposes. Does this story of Amram’s wife, Moses’ mother, not thrill you? God selects people through whom to accomplish His will on earth. Jochebed, a member of the priestly tribe of Levi, had, woven into her name, the name of Yahweh, “Jehovah’s glory.” What is God assigning to us today to bring glory to Him? Let us pray that we will find and do His will.