Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/51

5 the first and typical high priest. Together they thus represent the moral and religious functions which Israel had to fulfil. With this idea in mind, the later Biblical writers treated the character and work of the two men representatively, so that they present not only a historical, but an idealized, Moses and Aaron. It is, moreover, significant that, leaving P aside, a fairly consistent biography may be made out, and this must be adhered to in the main; for P throughout is constructive and idealistic, using its narrative to indicate how the postexilian priestly system must have grown up to its ideal completeness in the course of Israel’s history. Much has been theorized by some critics, tending to show that Aaron the priest was a figment devised to give validity to the sacerdotal order. Even, however, if some interpolations in the documents earlier than P, due to priestly hands, be assumed, there remains a substantial historical basis of fact for the career of Aaron as the assistant and spokesman of Moses, as the deputy of his brother during the desert wanderings, and as the chief priest of his people. Among other considerations, a guaranty for the soundness of the tradition in the record of personal actions is afforded by the fact that what is disadvantageous to Aaron is told as well as what is favorable, and that he is shown, especially in the affair of the calf-worship, to have been influenced by the moral and spiritual limitations of his age and environment. See also, etc.

J. F. McC.

 AARON'S ROD.— Biblical Data: A rod which, in the hands of Aaron, the high priest, was endowed with miraculous power during the several plagues that preceded the Exodus. In this function the rod of Moses was equally potent. Upon two occassions, however, the singular virtue of spontaneous power, when not in the grasp of its possessor, was exhibited by Aaron's Rod. At one time it swallowed the rods of the Egyptian magicians, and at another it blossomed and bore fruit in the Tabernacle, as an evidence of the exclusive right to the priesthood of the tribe of Levi (See ). In commemoration of this decision it was commanded that the rod be put again "before the testimony" (Num. xvii. 10). A later tradition asserts (Heb. ix. 4) that the rod was kept in the Ark of the Covenant. The main fact, however, is thus confirmed, that a rod was preserved in the Tabernacle as a relic of the institution of the Aaronic priesthood.

J. F. McC.

In Rabbinical Literature: The Bible ascribed similar miraculous powers to the Rod of Aaron and to the staff of Moses (compare, for example, Ex. iv. 2 et seq. and vii. 9). The Haggadah goes a step further, and entirely identifies the Rod of Aaron with that of Moses. Thus the Midrash Yelamdenu (Yalḳ. on Ps. ex. § 869) states that

