Who was Aaron in the Bible?

[Aa'ron] Eldest son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi. We first read of him when Moses was excusing himself from being sent to deliver Israel from Egypt because he was 'slow of speech.' Jehovah declared that his brother Aaron who was coming to meet him could speak well and should be his spokesman. Aaron accompanied Moses in his interviews with Pharaoh, and with his rod some of the miraculous plagues were called forth. He with Hur held up the hands of Moses on the Mount when Israel fought with Amalek. Ex. 17:12. Aaron with his two sons Nadab and Abihu with seventy of the elders, went with Moses into the mount where "they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness." Ex. 24:9-10. When Moses retired higher into the mount, he left Israel in charge of Aaron and Hur. Ex. 24:14.

Aaron, alas, had not the stability of his brother,* but at the request of the people, and apparently without a protest, made for them the golden calf: he also built an altar before it, and made proclamation of a feast to Jehovah on the morrow.

† Aaron's rod that budded had more to do with the tribe of Levi being chosen for the priesthood than with Aaron as an individual. Num. 17:8.

Aaron with Miriam (priest and prophetess) spake against Moses, with whom as mediator God had established His covenant for Israel in sovereign mercy, Ex. 34:27; and to whom God spake 'mouth to mouth' at that time. Their excuse was that he had married an Ethiopian woman (sign of the same sovereign grace that goes out to Gentiles who have no claim to it). Aaron humbled himself and interceded for Miriam. Num. 12. Aaron also sinned with Moses at the waters of Meribah, and was not allowed to enter the promised land. Num. 20:10-29. He was stripped of his robes, which were put on Eleazar his son, and he died and was buried on Mount Hor. Viewed officially Aaron is a striking type of Christ. In his consecration he was clothed with the priestly garments, with the breastplate, the mitre and the crown, and then was anointed with oil, type of the Holy Spirit. It was only in connection with his sons that there was any washing spoken of, or any sacrifice, even as Christ identified Himself with the priestly company, His brethren. Ex. 24:4, 10, 19, 20; Heb. 2:11-13

But God's care for His holy things is manifest in His preserving thus the record of Levi's sons so minutely, and appointing to each his particular work (see Num. 3 and 4.) Of Levi's three sons Kohath has the first place, from him Amram, then Aaron and Moses, and Miriam too is named; and from Aaron the line of priests. These were prominent in the tribe of Levi, they were leaders of the people (Micah 6:4). Miriam led the first song, a remarkable position of honour. Aaron as high priest led the people in worship and stood before God for them. Moses the prophet led them in their journeys through the wilderness. And he stands alone in his peculiar place as prophet. Aaron had sons to succeed him in the priest's office, for that line of priesthood must continue until the appointed time. Moses looks far away into the then distant future, over the times of Samuel, and Isaiah, and of all the prophet band and sees the Prophet as his successor in the Lord Jesus Himself. Of Whom Moses by the Spirit of God says, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto Him shall ye hearken." Yea, God Himself thus speaks, "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee" (Deut. 18:15-19). "Like unto thee." None like Moses till He came, but then how infinitely He surpassed the mediator of the old covenant!

Of old, in a subsidiary way, Aaron was deputed by Jehovah to be the "spokesman" of Moses to the people of Israel (Ex. 4:14-16). He was to be to Moses "instead of a mouth," and Moses was to be to him "instead of God." Aaron was formally appointed to the office of an intermediary between Moses and the people, and was therefore Moses' spokesman. But his original personal relationship to Moses was that of brother, and Jehovah described him as "Aaron the Levite thy brother." Aaron was first brother, then spokesman.

This historical incident from Exodus may therefore be used to illustrate the truth of Hebrews 1. Aaron was the voice of Moses to Pharaoh (Ex. 7:1-2). Moreover, the family relationship between the two men consolidated this special service of communicating the commands of Jehovah to the king of Egypt. Aaron was first the brother of Moses, and then his spokesman. Christ was first Son, and then God's Spokesman.

But Moses still objects; and evil as is this slowness of heart to respond to the grace of God, that grace nevertheless, still sovereign over it, makes it the occasion of the more perfect display of what is in His heart. Moses cannot yet speak, and God provides now for him one who is to be his mouth-piece to the people. This is Aaron, in God's mind the designed high-priest of Israel, though not yet revealed as that. It is as Moses' "prophet" that he is here announced, — his associate and complement in the great work which God had committed to them. Provision is now completely made.

It is remarkable that this title occurs but seldom in the O.T. Lev. 21:10; Num. 35:25; Joshua 20:6; 2 Kings 12:10; 2 Chr. 24:11, etc. Aaron was constantly called 'the priest;' but as his sons were also called priests, he was necessarily the 'chief' and would correspond to what is called high priest in the N.T. His office is summed up in few words: he "is ordained for men in things pertaining to God" that he might offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He stood for the people to God: he offered up the sacrifices which put the people in relation with God (Lev. 9), also those on the day of atonement (Lev. 16), and he blessed them as from God. He, as taken from among men, was one who could have compassion on, or forbearance toward, the ignorant and the erring; for that he himself was compassed with infirmity. Heb. 5:1-2. Aaron did not take the honour upon himself, nor did Christ. Heb. 5:4-5. Having accomplished redemption by the offering of Himself, He passed through the heavens and sat down on the right hand of God. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having been Himself tempted as we are, apart from sin. He ever lives to make intercession for us, He is also the minister of the sanctuary — He appears in the presence of God for us, and is the great Priest over the house of God. Heb. 4:14-15; Heb. 8:1, etc. See AARON, AARONIC PRIESTHOOD, MELCHISEDEC.

On the mount with God, Moses first heard who were to be the holy priesthood. Aaron, his elder brother, his mouthpiece before Pharaoh, was to have the privilege of being God's High Priest. "No man," we read (Heb. 5:4), "taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God." Accordingly, by Divine appointment, Moses was to take to him Aaron, his brother, and his sons with him, that he might minister to God in the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar (Ex. 48:1). The reader may remark the coupling together of the two elder, then of the two younger. Was that a fore-shadowing on the part of God of the future of those two, who were cut off judicially on the eighth day of Aaron's consecration, leaving the two younger to discharge the duties of priests throughout the wilderness journey?

That is the original idea of a high priest and it abides still, notwithstanding the way in which men have maligned and burlesqued it. Aaron the first to fill the office was the first to dishonour it. Yet probably there has been no living man — then or since — so fit for the position: evidently a man of noble presence and of an exalted eloquence, of calm and dignified bearing, even in times of crisis and calamity. When his sons are smitten dead at his feet, "Aaron held his peace." He had attained the faculty which that illustrious German prince, who had suffered so much, recently desired for his son — "Learn to suffer without complaining." When he hears that he is to die without seeing the promised laud, toward which he has fought and laboured for forty years, he calmly prepares for his lonely pilgrimage up the sides of Mount Hor. He was in the main a consistent and devout man and had to sustain a certain amount of obloquy by being associated with the enterprises of Moses, but such a man as Aaron is generally respected. Even the Koran, which is pretty hard usually on makers of idols, deals very gently and apologetically with him: while those writers who have, like Paine, written with the greatest virulence against Moses, generally leave his brother alone.

As to Israel, in the chapter before us, their rejection of God was most complete. "And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me … And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord." This was entirely setting aside God, and putting a calf in His stead. When they could say that a calf had brought them up out of Egypt, they had, evidently, abandoned all idea of the presence and character of the true God. How "quickly" they must "have turned aside out of the way," to have made such a gross and terrible mistake! And Aaron, the brother and yoke-fellow of Moses, led them on in this; and, with a calf before him, he could say, "Tomorrow is a feast to Jehovah!" How sad! how deeply humbling! God was displaced by an idol. A thing, "graven by art and man's device," was set in the place of "the Lord of all the earth."

Two or three preliminary remarks will conduce to our understanding of this subject. The necessity for the appointment of priests lay in the fact that the people were sinners, and as such, inasmuch as there was no provision as yet for cleansing them from the guilt of sin, had no title to come into God's presence. Man as he is cannot, dares not, come before God. The object of the priestly office was, therefore, to minister unto God (v. 1); but to minister unto God on behalf of the people. (Heb. 5:1-2.) In this dispensation there is no such thing as some of God's people acting as priests on behalf of others in this special way. All believers are now priests (see 1 Peter 2:5, 9); all alike enjoy liberty of access into the holiest of all. (Heb. 10) Aaron therefore is a type of Christ — a type of Christ when he is alone; but when he is associated with his sons, he with them is a type of the Church as the priestly family; but the Church, at the same time, in association with Christ. This distinction will appear most clearly in the next chapter. It is of the first importance to be clear upon this subject, because, through ignorance or indifference to the truth, thousands of professed believers have gone, and thousands more are going, back to Jewish ground, on which they accept the existence of a special order of men who claim to possess, like Aaron and his sons, the particular privilege of going to God on behalf of their fellow-men. The assertion of such a claim is to attack the very foundation of Christianity, inasmuch as it denies the perpetual efficacy of the one offering of Christ. Aaron then, be it remembered, is a type of Christ; but if he is seen together with his sons, then the privileges of the Church, in association with Christ as the priestly family, are presented. The choice of Aaron and his sons was of pure grace. An essential qualification for the office was divine appointment (Heb. 5:4); but Aaron was not chosen on the ground of any merit in himself; he was simply in this matter the object of divine and sovereign favour. He had no claim whatever upon God for such an honour; but God gave it to him in the exercise of His sovereign prerogative.