Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:21-25

21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?

22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.

23 For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.

25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)

Moses asks the same question of Aaron that we posed earlier: why would he submit to the Israelites’ demands for something that he knew was wrong? Nothing in Aaron’s response suggests that he thought it was a good thing that he did. Rather, the fact that he asks for mercy strongly suggests that he knows that he was wrong to concede to the masses. At least he is completely forthcoming in recounting what he did.

I had wondered whether Aaron agreed to their demands out of spite, as a way to say, “if you’re so set on damnation, by all means go ahead!” One thing that may support that theory is what verse 25 states about Aaron having them get naked as part of their idolatrous revelry, with the objective of bringing shame upon them.

Continuing with the idea of Moses up in the mountain representing the elevated soul and the wicked people in the valley representing fallen mortality, then Aaron might represent to us the basically decent person who is surrounded by a sea of iniquity. He stands in place of all those who try to balance their own survival against their morals. There are many of us who become compromised, who seek not to deprave ourselves, but who stand back and let the depravity happen.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:2-4

2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.

4 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.

It does seem a strange thing that Aaron complied with the wishes of the Israelites and would fashion them a golden idol. Based on all the other accounts of him, it seems he was generally obedient to the Lord, so why would he consent to this? And why would the Lord trust him hereafter to serve as a priest after making this infraction?

Perhaps this was a point of failure for him, but one that didn’t destroy his soul. Perhaps he saw himself as a representative of the people, his duty being to execute their will whether for good or ill, regardless of his personal feelings. It does occur to me that Aaron might also have only complied with the people out of spite. Perhaps he saw the people’s insistence on damning themselves, and in his anger was happy to see them do it. Some of the later verses in this chapter might support this theory.

In any case, performing this idolatry was going to require the people to give up their most precious possessions. Their gold, their jewelry, and their heirlooms were all stripped from their families and given up to fashion the pagan idol.

Let us compare and contrast this to the first instruction God gave to Moses for the Israelites in building the tabernacle. Right at the start God told Moses that the Israelites would need to offer their riches if they were to build the holy place. But in those verses, God made it explicitly clear that this was to be a willful offering. They could choose to participate, or they could choose not to. No such freewill election is expressed here with the golden calf. Unlike God, the idol wouldn’t even exist without their gold, so if they insisted upon having it, sacrifice was mandatory.

Either path of worship, whether to the true God or to a false theology will require a cost of that which is most precious. The difference is that God only invites us to make that offering, whereas the false religion demands it of us! If we follow God, we will be taken only so far as we willingly submit to. If we follow evil, we will be taken for everything, whether we choose it or not.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 29:29-30

29 And the holy garments of Aaron shall be his sons’ after him, to be anointed therein, and to be consecrated in them.

30 And that son that is priest in his stead shall put them on seven days, when he cometh into the tabernacle of the congregation to minister in the holy place.

We have a brief parenthetical here, which reiterates that Aaron and his descendants would make up the priest class, the only ones that could be consecrated to stand before the Lord.

What it says about putting the garments on the priests for seven days is explained further in the following verses of this chapter. Apparently, the offering of a bullock, two rams, and the various breads would be repeated over a period of seven days.

Presumably, this sort of repetition would impress the symbolic lessons deeper and deeper in the mind of the priest. It also signifies how we strengthen our commitment to the Lord by degrees, reaching greater and greater levels of discipleship as we go. Finally, there is a special significance to the number seven, suggesting fulfillment and completion. For example, seven days was the full measure of the creation of the Earth, and Naaman was commanded to bathe himself in the river Jordan seven times to be healed. Through a full measure of repeated consecration, the priest would be ready by-and-by to perform his holy duties.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 6:26-27

26 These are that Aaron and Moses, to whom the Lord said, Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies. 

27 These are they which spake to Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt: these are that Moses and Aaron.

These are interesting verses, lauding the accomplishments of Moses and Aaron at the conclusion of giving their ancestry. The fact that it is tying Moses and Aaron to the events that we were already in the middle of reading is strong evidence that this whole genealogy sequence was actually a separate passage that was inserted in the middle of the other account. The record of Moses seems to be a patchwork of many different tellings all combined together, sometimes in haphazard ways.

One other thing that stands out to me is that the two men are first listed as “Aaron and Moses” and secondly as “Moses and Aaron.” This seems to emphasize their inseparable nature. There is no Moses rescuing captive Israel without Aaron, just as there is no Aaron performing the priestly rituals in the wilderness without Moses. Moses may have been the one God spoke directly to, but in their duty both men were equally yoked. They pulled together as one.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 6:21-25

21 And the sons of Izhar; Korah, and Nepheg, and Zichri.

22 And the sons of Uzziel; Mishael, and Elzaphan, and Zithri.

23 And Aaron took him Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab, sister of Naashon, to wife; and she bare him Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

24 And the sons of Korah; Assir, and Elkanah, and Abiasaph: these are the families of the Korhites.

25 And Eleazar Aaron’s son took him one of the daughters of Putiel to wife; and she bare him Phinehas: these are the heads of the fathers of the Levites according to their families.

In these verses we hear the children of Izhar and Uzziel, who were Moses and Aaron’s uncles, and the sons of Korah, who was Moses and Aaron’s cousin. More importantly, we also hear the names of Aaron’s sons and his grandson, all of whom would be integral to the law that God would lay forth. Through Moses, God would establish the priestly office and detail its responsibilities. This office would first fall to Aaron and his sons, and then to their descendants, ultimately turning the entire Levitical tribe into a priest class in Israel.

The tribe of the Levites would serve exclusively in this function, being the only ones authorized to perform the priestly duties until the advent of Jesus Christ, who was of the tribe of Judah. Christ would extend the priestly responsibility to any worthy man who was called to it, regardless of his heritage. For now, though, it would be approximately 1,600 years that the Levites would carry this duty alone.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:27-28

27 And the Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God, and kissed him.

28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him.

Not only did the Lord address Moses’s insecurities by assigning Aaron as a spokesperson, but He even sent Aaron to meet Moses along the way. The path God had described to Moses was forming itself before him, and Moses would come to the Israelites ready and prepared with his brother.

We do not get much insight to the relationship between Aaron and Moses. We will learn later that Aaron was born three years before Moses, presumably before the Pharaoh’s murderous decree, and thus he was allowed to live with his family unlike Moses. Aaron would have been there as his mother weaned infant Moses and may have had memories of the time. He would have been around when his younger brother was given away to the Egyptians, and we do not know what relationship Moses had with his real family after that. And then Moses had been in exile far from Aaron, living an entire life in Midian with the family he established there.

It seems quite likely, therefore, that the two were mostly strangers to one another, knowing who the other was, but not who they really were. Even so, their reunion was still full of brotherly love and care. Aaron kissed Moses when he saw him, and this happy reunion calls to mind a very similar one between Jacob and Esau. Unlike those two, though, Aaron and Moses’s reunion was to be permanent. They would now work side-by-side for the rest of their lives. Moses informed Aaron of all the details of the Lord’s plan, and now the two shared a united in purpose.