What's in a name -- AARON?










From the Holy Bible:

Aaron was the brother of Moses and his senior by three years. He was a descendant of Levi through Kohath and Amram. As we do not read of perils attending his infancy it may be inferred that he was born before the promulgation of the nefarious Egyptian edicts dooming the Hebrew male children to death. He was younger than his sister Miriam. He married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, of the tribe of Judah, who bore him four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. When Moses at Horeb was called to stand forth as the deliverer of his oppressed countrymen, and, wishing to escape the mission, complained that he was "slow of speech, and of a slow tongue," God repelled the objection, and said, "Is there not Aaron thy brother the Levite? I know that he can speak well." Aaron was forthwith instructed to go out and meet Moses in the wilderness. He did so, and the brothers came together. Returning to Egypt, they gathered together the elders of Israel and intimated to them the approaching deliverance. Aaron acted as the spokesman and agent of Moses and carried the rod in the first interviews with the elders and with Pharaoh, and during the first three plagues. But soon afterward Moses partly dispensed with the agency of Aaron, and thenceforth, whenever the rod was used symbolically, it was in the hand of Moses himself. Aaron and Hur supported Moses' arms during the battle with Amalek. When the covenant between Jehovah and Israel was entered into at Mount Sinai, the ceremony of the ratification was concluded, as usual, by a common meal spread for the contracting parties. Aaron and two of his sons with Moses and seventy-nine elders of Israel were appointed to partake of this meal as the legal representatives of the nation and to behold the vision of the God of Israel at the ceremony. During the prolonged stay of Moses in the mount, the people became impatient at the absence of their leader and turned to Aaron with the demand that he make them gods to go before them. Aaron weakly yielded and made the golden calf. According to instructions which Moses received, Aaron and his sons were to fill the office of priest.


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