Who was Eleazar in the Bible?

Third son of Aaron and Elisheba (a descendant of Judah through Pharez). He succeeded as chief of the Levites on the death of Nadab and Abihu, and on the death of his father became high priest. He took part with Moses in numbering the people and with Joshua in the allotment of the land. The priesthood continued in his house until it passed to Eli who was of the family of Ithamar; Solomon restored it again to the family of Eleazar in the person of Zadok. Ex. 6:23, 25; Lev. 10:6-16; Num. 3:2, 4, 32; Num. 20:25-28; Num. 26:1, 3, 60, 63; Num. 27:19-22; Num. 31:6-54; Deut. 10:6; Joshua 14:1; 1 Chr. 6:3-4, 50.

Son of Abinadab, set apart to keep the ark at Kirjath-jearim. 1 Sam. 7:1.

The priest did have a nearer place than the servant (the Levite) however, a place of enjoyment of the Lord's presence. For the glory of the person of Christ is for the worship of Saints, though not for the explanation to others. Thus Eleazar the son of Aaron was appointed to take charge of the oil for the light, the sweet incense, the daily grain offering and the anointing oil, and to oversee the ordering of the tabernacle and its furniture (v.16). Eleazar's name means "God is Helper," and he succeeded Aaron in the high priesthood when Aaron died (Num.20:23-28), He is therefore a type of Christ as High Priest in resurrection.

Aaron's sons are Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Nadab and Abihu were judged for their sin. And thus in the priestly family we again see that the history of the natural man comes first and then is entirely set aside. After Nadab and Abihu come Eleazar and Ithamar: Eleazar, the priest according to the election of grace, Ithamar, the responsible priest, set aside in order to give place to the former.

Eleazar begets Phinehas, a man of energy, who like Caleb added virtue to his faith and was chosen by God to continue the priestly line. This line continues without interruption down to Azariah (v. 9), who “exercised the priesthood in the house that Solomon built in Jerusalem” (v. 10). The line goes on from Azariah to Jehozadak, the last high priest mentioned in Chronicles. He “went away when Jehovah carried away Judah and Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar” (v. 15). Ezra and Nehemiah give us information about the high priests who functioned after the return from captivity. Their line is interrupted about 330 years before Christ (Neh. 12:10-11), just as the royal line of descent stops in 1 Chronicles 3, a few generations after Zerubbabel.

A short time after the contention at Meribah, Aaron, along with Moses and Eleazar, must go up on mount Hor. There Moses strips his brother of his priestly garments and puts them upon Eleazar, his nephew. “Aaron died there on the top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain” (Num. 20:28).

Eli was of the line of Ithamar, the youngest son of Aaron, and in consequence came is last in the order of priestly privilege. Their responsibilities in connection with the tabernacle were almost wholly of the Levite character (see Ex. 28:1; Ex. 38:21). On the death of Nadab and Abihu because of their offering strange fire before the Lord, the high-priesthood fell to Eleazar, the third in order of age. How the office came to be transferred to the house of Ithamar, the fourth son of Aaron, Scripture does not inform us. God has reasons in all things, some of them being hidden from us for the present, as those unexplained transposings of the earth's crust, sometimes met with, which have proved so puzzling to geologists. How, or when the strata became superimposed, they are unable to say; they only know that they were. In some upheaval of the dim past they became inverted out of their regular order, but in what manner, or in what geologic age the cataclysm occurred is a mystery to man.

But before giving power to His king, and lifting up the horn of His anointed - of whom the true Anointed was to be the descendant, and who bore, indeed, prophetically, his name of "Beloved" (David, see Ezekiel) - before the existence of that kingly authority, what was the link between God and the people? What, I say, was the link when there was no king? For some link there must have been. He who is ever so little acquainted with the ways of God in the Old Testament will at once answer, "It was the high priest." For after Moses (who was king in Jeshurun), who else could be the link? The only person who could have been so was Joshua; but in the very times of Joshua it was the high priest rather who was so. Let us cite the passages which speak of this. Take Numbers 27:15-23. There we see Joshua, who was to command, placed before Eleazar and the congregation; and when a portion of the honour of Moses has been conferred upon him, in order that the people might obey him, he must needs remain before Eleazar the priest who enquired of the Lord by Urim and Thummim. At his word (the word of Eleazar) was to be the coming in, and at his word was to be the going out, of him (Joshua), and of the children of Israel with him, and of all the congregation. Indeed, if God was King in the midst of His people, His high priest, who drew near to Him, was, of necessity, the centre of unity. It was he (the high priest), who bore the names of the twelve tribes upon his breast before the Lord, and their judgment, continually, having the Urim and Thummim, sole true centre of unity. On the other hand, when even it was Joshua who directed them, who communicated to them the will of the Lord, it was, nevertheless, always at the word of Eleazar that they were to come in; and at the word of Eleazar, that they were to go out. That Israel was unfaithful to this, in the times of the judges, is true; but what was the consequence thereof?

It is at this new point of their history that Eleazar personally takes his place, in conjunction with Joshua, for the distribution of the land at the door of the tabernacle. "Caleb" also takes a distinguished place, as "an heir of promise," and claims the mountain of which "the Lord spake to Moses." As to the common allotment "of the children of Israel, Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun," distributed their inheritances to them in Shiloh. When difficulties arose, as in the case of the daughters of Zelophehad, they came near before Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, for their settlement. The tabernacle, in Joshua 18, also takes its permanent place at Shiloh, where the whole congregation of Israel were assembled together. So that, what Gilgal was to Joshua and the armed hosts for power in their days of conflict, Shiloh and the tabernacle were to Eleazar and the priesthood, for maintaining the precious relations of Israel with Jehovah, as a worshipping people, in the time of peace and rest. Concerning the tribe of Levi and the Levites, they had no part among the people, "for the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance."

The tabernacle and Shiloh take their place as a new centre, in chapter 18, from whence Joshua sent out the three men from each tribe to pass through the land, and describe it by cities, into seven parts, in a book. On their return to Joshua, "he cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord; and there he divided the land unto the children of Israel." Their travelling days, by the pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, were over and gone, and their migratory character as a people was to give place to citizenship in due season; but at present, under Joshua, they are only as dwellers in the land. "These are the inheritances which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers," divided by lot in Shiloh before the Lord, at "the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." So they made an end of dividing the country. As a yet further proof of the important and necessary place which the priest holds throughout these chapters, we may notice, in Joshua 21, that "the heads of the fathers of the Levites came unto Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and spake unto them in Shiloh, in the land of Canaan, respecting the cities and suburbs which Moses commanded should be given to them to dwell in." Finally, upon this point, in chapter 22, touching "the great altar, Ed," which had been set up on the other side of Jordan, it was the priest, Phinehas, son of Eleazar, who was sent with ten princes to investigate this grave matter. On their return, "the children of Israel blessed God," and gave up their intention of going to war against Reuben and Gad.

Son of Dodo, the Ahohite, and one of David's three mighty men. 2 Sam. 23:9; 1 Chr. 11:12.

(a) It begins with the "generations of Aaron and Moses," the spiritual heads of the tribe, though only the name of Moses is given, as his children fall into their place as simple Levites. It is all the plainer on this account that it is as heads of the tribe they are brought in here. Typically, Christ as Priest and King is seen in relation to ministry, the fount and director of it. Aaron is first, because it depends above all upon mediation, is the fruit of this. Aaron, too, is the head of that priestly family which is typically our own. Here indeed we find terrible failure and the judgment of God, the first two sons cut off, and the third, Eleazar (the "help of God"), speaking in this way of that resurrection-power in which God acts when all human power is completely at an end. Ithamar, ("where the palm-tree is,") following Eleazar, seems to imply the uprightness and fruitfulness, constantly in Scripture associated with the palm-tree, like which the righteous flourish. (Ps. 92:12.) This, at least, is in the true order here not the less so that in the history we find that when (as in Eli) Ithamar's descendants are exalted above Eleazar's then there is mournful failure and collapse. Together and in due order Eleazar and Ithamar minister as priests in their father's presence.

Interesting is Eleazar's priesthood and ministry. As the third son of Aaron and in his ministry here he typifies the priesthood of Christ. The censers are kept as a memorial and as a warning. This ministry of Eleazar and Aaron staying the plague with the censer of incense, when the whole congregation revolted, is a confirmation of the divinely appointed priesthood and its efficacy. The preservation of the sinning, murmuring people depended upon the exercise of the priesthood. Blessed be God for Him who has made atonement, and whose priesthood in the presence of God keeps His people.