Moses and Aaron
Moses
Moses lifts up the brass serpent, curing the Israelites from poisonous snake bites in a painting by Benjamin West.
Wikipedia
Prophet and deliverer of Israel
Further information: The Exodus
The Israelites had settled in the Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob, but a new Pharaoh arose who oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born to his father Amram, son (or descendant) of Kehath the Levite, who entered Egypt with Jacob's household; his mother was Jochebed (also Yocheved), who was kin to Kehath. Moses had one older (by seven years) sister, Miriam, and one older (by three years) brother, Aaron.[note 3] The Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born would be drowned in the river Nile, but Moses's mother placed him in an ark and concealed the ark in the bulrushes by the riverbank, where the baby was discovered and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, and raised as an Egyptian. One day, after Moses had reached adulthood, he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. Moses, in order to escape the Pharaoh's death penalty, fled to Midian (a desert country south of Judah), where he married Zipporah.[34]
There, on Mount Horeb, God appeared to Moses as a burning bush, revealed to Moses his name YHWH (probably pronounced Yahweh)[35] and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his chosen people (Israel) out of bondage and into the Promised Land (Canaan).[36] During the journey, God tried to kill Moses, but Zipporah saved his life. Moses returned to carry out God's command, but God caused the Pharaoh to refuse, and only after God had subjected Egypt to ten plagues did the Pharaoh relent. Moses led the Israelites to the border of Egypt, but there God hardened the Pharaoh's heart once more, so that he could destroy the Pharaoh and his army at the Red Sea Crossing as a sign of his power to Israel and the nations.[37]
Victory O Lord!, 1871 by John Everett Millais, depicts Moses, assisted by Aaron and Hur, holding up his arms during the battle against Amalek.
After defeating the Amalekites in Rephidim, Moses led the Israelites to biblical Mount Sinai, where he was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets. However, since Moses remained a long time on the mountain, some of the people feared that he might be dead, so they made a statue of a golden calf and worshipped it, thus disobeying and angering God and Moses. Moses, out of anger, broke the tablets, and later ordered the elimination of those who had worshiped the golden statue, which was melted down and fed to the idolaters.[38] He also wrote the ten commandments on a new set of tablets. Later at Mount Sinai, Moses and the elders entered into a covenant, by which Israel would become the people of YHWH, obeying his laws, and YHWH would be their god. Moses delivered the laws of God to Israel, instituted the priesthood under the sons of Moses's brother Aaron, and destroyed those Israelites who fell away from his worship. In his final act at Sinai, God gave Moses instructions for the Tabernacle, the mobile shrine by which he would travel with Israel to the Promised Land.[39]
From Sinai, Moses led the Israelites to the Desert of Paran on the border of Canaan. From there he sent twelve spies into the land. The spies returned with samples of the land's fertility, but warned that its inhabitants were giants. The people were afraid and wanted to return to Egypt, and some rebelled against Moses and against God. Moses told the Israelites that they were not worthy to inherit the land, and would wander the wilderness for forty years until the generation who had refused to enter Canaan had died, so that it would be their children who would possess the land.[40] Later on, Korah was punished for leading a revolt against Moses.
When the forty years had passed, Moses led the Israelites east around the Dead Sea to the territories of Edom and Moab. There they escaped the temptation of idolatry, conquered the lands of Og and Sihon in Transjordan, received God's blessing through Balaam the prophet, and massacred the Midianites, who by the end of the Exodus journey had become the enemies of the Israelites due to their notorious role in enticing the Israelites to sin against God. Moses was twice given notice that he would die before entry to the Promised Land: in Numbers 27:13, once he had seen the Promised Land from a viewpoint on Mount Abarim, and again in Numbers 31:1 once battle with the Midianites had been won.
On the banks of the Jordan River, in sight of the land, Moses assembled the tribes. After recalling their wanderings he delivered God's laws by which they must live in the land, sang a song of praise and pronounced a blessing on the people, and passed his authority to Joshua, under whom they would possess the land. Moses then went up Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, looked over the promised land of Israel spread out before him, and died, at the age of one hundred and twenty. More humble than any other man (Num. 12:3), "there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom YHWH knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10). The New Testament states that after Moses's death, Michael the Archangel and the Devil disputed over his body (Epistle of Jude 1:9).
Aaron
Aaron's rod blossoming, as in Numbers 17:23, etching by Augustin Hirschvogel before 1553; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Wikipedia
According to the Abrahamic religions, Aaron[note 1] (/ˈærən/ or /ˈɛərən/; Hebrew: אַהֲרֹן ’Ahărōn)[3] was a prophet, high priest, and the elder brother[4] of Moses.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Knowledge of Aaron, along with his brother Moses, comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Bible and Quran.
The Hebrew Bible relates that, unlike Moses, who grew up in the Egyptian royal court, Aaron and his elder sister Miriam remained with their kinsmen in the eastern border-land of Egypt (Goshen). When Moses first confronted the Egyptian king about the Israelites, Aaron served as his brother's spokesman ("prophet") to the Pharaoh.[12] Part of the Law given to Moses at Sinai granted Aaron the priesthood for himself and his male descendants, and he became the first High Priest of the Israelites.[13]
Aaron died before the Israelites crossed the North Jordan river and he was buried on Mount Hor (Numbers 33:39;[14][15][16] Deuteronomy 10:6 says he died and was buried at Moserah).[14][17] Aaron is also mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible.
Aaron, like Moses, was not permitted to enter Canaan with the Israelites[14] because the two brothers showed impatience at Meribah (Kadesh) in the last year of the desert pilgrimage,[63] when Moses brought water out of a rock to quench the people's thirst. Although they had been commanded to speak to the rock, Moses struck it with the staff twice, which was construed as displaying a lack of deference to the LORD.[14][64]
There are two accounts of the death of Aaron in the Torah.[14] Numbers says that soon after the incident at Meribah, Aaron with his son Eleazar and Moses ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly garments and transferred them to Eleazar. Aaron died on the summit of the mountain, and the people mourned for him thirty days.[65][14][66][67] The other account is found in Deuteronomy 10:6, where Aaron died at Moserah and was buried.[14][68] There is a significant amount of travel between these two points, as the itinerary in Numbers 33:31–37 records seven stages between Moseroth (Mosera) and Mount Hor.[14][69] Aaron died on the 1st of Av and was 123 at the time of his death.[70][71][72]
Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon of the tribe of Judah.[73] The sons of Aaron were Eleazar, Ithamar, and Nadab and Abihu.[note 3] A descendant of Aaron is an Aaronite, or Kohen, meaning Priest.[75][76] Any non-Aaronic Levite—i.e., descended from Levi but not from Aaron[77]—assisted the Levitical priests of the family of Aaron in the care of the tabernacle; later of the temple.[note 4]
The Gospel of Luke records that both Zechariah and Elizabeth and therefore their son John the Baptist were descendants of Aaron.[78]