AARON (rTN, etymology and signification uncertain; Sept. 'Aapciv), the eldest son of Am ram and Jochebad, of the tribe of Levi, and brother of Moses. He was born B. C. (Hales, B. C. 5730), three years before Moses, and one year before Pharaoh's edict to destroy the male children of the Israelites (Exod. i. 22; ii, r, 2). His name first occurs in the mysterious interview which Moses had with the Lord, who appeared to him in the burning bush, while he kept Jethro's flock in Horeb. When Moses sought to evade the great commission of delivering Israel, by pleading that he lacked that persuasive readiness of speech which appeared to him essential to such an undertaking, he was reminded that his brother Aaron possessed this in a high degree, and could therefore speak in his name and on his behalf. During the forty years' absence of Moses in the land of Midian, Aaron had married a woman of the tribe of Judah, named Elisheba (or Elisabeth), who had borne to him four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Itha mar; and Eleazar had, before the return of Moses, become the father of Phinehas (Exod. vi. 23-25).
Pursuant to an intimation from God, Aaron went into the wilderness to meet his long exiled brother, and conduct him back to Egypt. After forty years of separation, they met and embraced each other at the mount of Horeb. When they arrived in Goshen, Aaron introduced his brother to the chiefs of Israel, and assisted him in opening and enforcing the great commission which had been confided to him. In the subsequent transactions, from the first interview with Pharaoh till after the delivered nation had passed the Red Sea, Aaron appears to have been almost always present with his more illustrious brother, assisting and supporting him; and no separate act of his own is recorded. This co -operation was ever afterwards maintained. Aaron and Hur were present on the hill from which Moses surveyed the battle which Joshua fought with the Amalekites; and these two long sustained the weary hands upon whose uplifting the fate of the battle was found to depend (Exod. xvii.
50-12). Afterwards, when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the tables of the law, Aaron, with his sons and seventy of the elders, accompanied him part of the way up, and, as a token of the Divine favour, were permitted to behold afar off the outskirts of that radiant symbol of the Sacred Presence, which Moses was allowed to view more nearly (Exod. xxiv. 5, 2, 9-11).
The absence of Moses in the mountain was pro longed for forty days, during which the people seem to have looked upon Aaron as their head, and an occasion arose which first brings the re spective characters of the brothers into real com parison, and the result fully vindicates the Divine preference of Moses by showing that, notwith standing the seniority and greater eloquence of Aaron, he wanted the high qualities which were essential in the leader of the Israelhes, and which were possessed by Moses in a very eminent degree. The people grew impatient at the protracted stay of their great leader in the mountain, and at length concluded that he had perished in the devouring fire that gleamed upon its top. The result of this hasty conclusion gives us the first intiniztion of the extent to which their minds were tainted with the rank idolatries of Egypt. Recognising the autho rity of their lost chief's brother, they gathered around him, and clamorously demanded that he should provide them with a visible symb Aic image of their God, that they might worship him as other gods were worshipped. Either afraid to risk the consequences of a refusal, or imperfectly impressed with the full meaning of the recent and authorita tive prohibition of all such attempts to represent or symbolize the Divine Being, Aaron complied with their demand; and with the ornaments of gold which they freely offered, cast the figure of a calf [CALF]. He sought, however, to fix the meaning of this image as a symbol of the true God, by proclaiming a feast to Jehovah for the ensuing day. On that day the people met to cele brate the feast, with dancing, with shouting, and with sports.