Notes on Moses and Aaron

In Exodus and Numbers, the escape from Egypt is led by the prophet Moses and the priest Aaron, though their relationship is not always an easy one and some stories appear to exalt one at the expense of the other. In Deuteronymy, Aaron barely appears. The result is a more rounded but not always consistent account. One explanation is that the accounts may have been affected by the later religious politics of Judah and Israel. Aaron was regarded as the ancestor of the Zadokite priests, who became the main line of high priests under Solomon, their representative at the time having backed Solomon against his brothers. Other Levites were reduced to glorified janitors of the temple, despite their kinship to Moses. At any rate, it is worth tracing the differences in the accounts given. We may attribute these to different sources, as there is some other evidence of multiple sources. Passages attributed to the Elohist, for example, speak only of the Tabernacle (tent of meeting), while Yahwist passages speak only of the Ark of the Covenant, though this depends somewhat on who is doing the attributing.

Exodus 1.1-2.25: Stories About Moses: Stories about miraculous escapes at birth attach themselves to gods and heroes in all cultures. Pharoah's attempt to kill the Hebrew male children may well recall the infancy narrative in Matthew 2.1-18. The basket may recall the Greek story of Perseus or the stories told of Sargon the Great. The name Moses is characteristically Egyptian (meaning "child of"), but it is not unknown for a people living in a strange land to give their children names in use there. The story of his flight both reinforces what we have been told in general about the oppression of the Hebrews and explains why God finds him among the Midianites. The intervening years are skipped over, since the story really begins with his call.
Exodus 3.1-4.30: The Call of Moses. As in the opening chapters of Genesis, we seem to have two stories of the call stiched together, a version ascribed to the Elohist in 3, and a version mainly from the Priestly source in 4, stitched together by further objections from Moses.
- Siblings: The first mention of Aaron as a brother of Moses is in 4.14. Moses has complained that he does not speak well, and God provides his brother Aaron as a spokesperson. The Priestly source, always fond of genealogies, is also responsible for introducing the genealogy in 6.13-25, though the genealogy itself is probably older. The beginning of chapter 7 continues by repeating Moses's doubts about his own ability and God's appointment of his brother as a spokesperson. The ages specified in 6.7 make Aaron the older brother.
  - Miriam: The prophetess Miriam also appears as a leading figure. Some variant versions of the chapter 6 genealogy included her name as a sister of Aaron and Moses in 6.20. This seems to have been an editorial addition to bring the genealogy in line with Exodus 15.20, where Miriam is identified as a sister of Aaron, though nothing is said there of her being related to Moses. In later tradition, however, she is assumed to be the unnamed sister who sees the daughter of the Pharoah fish the basket with Moses in it out of the water (2.4-5).\ In some stories she is particularly allied with Aaron.
- The Staff of God: In 4.1-9, Moses is given a series of signs with which to convince the Israelites, one of the which is a staff which turns into a serpent (4.3). This is probably the "staff of God" which Moses is carrying in 4.17. Later, though, in another Priestly source section (6.8-13), Aaron is carrying a staff. At the direction of Moses, he casts it down and it becomes a snake. At the parting of the Red Sea, however, Aaron is not a presence, and God tells Moses to use the staff to part the sea (14.16), though the staff doesn't seem to be mentioned when Moses raises his hands to do so (14.21).
- Circumcision. In 4.25-26 Zipporah circumcizes their son to ward of an attack on Moses (by God!). One assumes the son is the one from 2.22, but the incident is oddly placed. It has been suggested that this is somehow an initiation for Moses.
Exodus 8.16-19: The Third Plague: The character and even the number of the various plagues is not always clear. Here there are ten, of which this is the third, but the kind of bug is no longer clear--gnats, mosquitoes, lice, and maggots having all been suggested. It doesn't seem to be on the list in Psalm 78 (which also varies in the order given), and Psalm 105 seems to combine it with the next plaugue, flies.
Exodus 32: The Golden Calf. This story probably may come from the Elohist; it is an early source, at any rate, and appears hostile to Aaron and favorable to the Levites. Aaron falls into the worst kind of idolatry, making a golden calf. Moses comes down the mountain and is so angry that he smashes the tablets of the law, and he has the Levites kill three thousand people. Although Aaron tells Moses that he only took the people's gold and tossed it into the fire, out of which came the calf (32.24), but the narrator says he molded and made it (32.4, 32.35).
- Calf or Calves: Aaron is described as making only one calf but tells the people "These are your gods" (/B>32.4). A common explanation for the discrepancy is that the narrator means to echo Jeroboam's similar statement when he built two golden calves and set them up in Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12.28-29)--and thus to condemn the worship at those sanctuaries as a form of apostasy.
- Joshua appears suddenly and briefly in 32.17-18. He was earlier (24.13) described as having accompanied Moses when her set out for Mt. Sinai. All this helps clear the Ephraimite hero from involvement in the camp's apostasy.
Numbers 12.1-15: Aaron and Miriam Speak Against Moses. In this passage from another early source, perhaps the Elohist, the criticism of Moses for having a non-Israelite wife is rejected, and God makes it clear that Moses as a prophet is a cut above his siblings. Perhaps because high priests can't be blemished, Aaron gets off with a warning, but Miriam gets a week of exile and leprosy. It is also possible that two traditions of complaints against Moses have been conflated, with Miriam taking the lead in the complaint about the wife.
Numbers 16: Another Rebellion. In this chapter we may have two disputes which have been put together. One, which may derive from the Yahwist, has to do with Dathan and Eliab's refusal to follow Moses. They are Reubenites, presumably once the leading tribe, given his status as eldest son. The second complaint, however, is directed to Moses by Korah and the Levites and is interpreted by Moses (16.8-11) as a desire for more equal status with Aaron as priest. This source, presumably P, is pro-Aaron and anti-Levite. When the people protest the killing of Korah and his followers, 14 thousand die in a plague until Moses has Aaron intercede with God.