AARON, the son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi, (Exod. vi. 20.) was born A. M. 2430; that is, the year before Pharaoh's edict for destroying the Hebrew male infants, and three years before his brother Moses, Exod. vii. 7. He married Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah, (Exod. vi. 23.) by whom he had four sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. The eldest two were destroyed by fire from heaven ; from the other two the race of the chief priests was continued in Israel, 1 Chron. xxiv. 2 seq.

The Lord, having appeared to Moses, and directed him to deliver the Israelites from their oppressive bondage in Egypt, appointed Aaron to be his assistant and speaker, he being the more eloquent of the two, Exod. iv. 14 — 16; vii. 1. Moses, having been directed by God to return into Egypt, quitted Midian, with his family, and entered upon his journey. At mount Horeb he met his brother Aaron, who had come thither by a divine direction ; (Exod. iv. 27.) and after the usual salutations, and conference as to the purpose of the Almighty, the brothers prosecuted their journey to Egypt, A. M. 2513. Upon their arrival in Egypt, they called together the elders of Israel, and having announced to them the pleasure of the Almighty, to deliver the people from their bondage, they presented themselves before Pharaoh, and exhibited the credentials of their divine mission, by working several miracles in his presence. Pharaoh, however, drove them away, and for the purpose of repressing the strong hopes of the Israelites of a restoration to liberty, he ordered their laborious occupations to be greatly increased. Overwhelmed with despair, the Hebrews bitterly complained to Moses and Aaron, who encouraged them to sustain their oppressions, and reiterated the determination of God to subdue the obstinacy of Pharaoh, and procure the deliverance of his people, ch. v. In all their subsequent intercourse with Pharaoh, during which several powerful remonstrances were made, and many astonishing miracles performed, Aaron appears to have taken a very prominent part, and to have pleaded with much eloquence and effect the cause of the injured Hebrews, Exod. vi. — xii.

Moses having ascended mount Sinai, to receive the tables of the law, after the ratification of the covenant made with Israel, Aaron, his sons, and seventy elders, followed him partly up. They saw the symbol of the divine presence, without sustaining any injury, (Exod. xxiv. 1 — 11.) and were favor ed with a sensible manifestation of the good pleasure of the Lord. It was at this tune that Moses received it divine command to invest Aaron and his four sons with the priestly office, the functions of which they were to discharge before Jehovah for ever. See Priest.

During the forty days that Moses continued in the mount, the people became impatient, and tumultuously addressed Aaron : "Make us gods," said they, "which shall go before us : for as to this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him," Exod. xxxii. 1 seq. Aaron desired them to bring their pendants, and the ear-rings of their wives and children ; which, being brought, were melted down under his direction, and formed into a golden calf. Before this calf Aaron built an altar, and the people sacrificed, danced, and diverted themselves around it, exclaiming, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." The Lord having informed Moses of the sin of the Israelites, (Exod. xxxii. 7.) he immediately descended, carrying the tables of the law, which, as he approached the camp, he threw upon the ground and broke, (ver. 19.) re proaching the people with their transgression, and Aaron with hie weakness. Aaron at first endeavor ed to excuse himself, but afterwards became penitent, humbled himself, and was pardoned. The tabernacle having been completed, and the offerings prepared, Aaron and his sons were consecrated with the holy oil, and invested with the sacred garments, Exod. xl. Lev. viii. Scarcely, however, were the ceremonies connected with this solemn service com pleted, when his two eldest sous, Nadob and Abihu, were destroyed by fire from heaven, for presuming to burn incense in the tabernacle with strange fire, Lev. x.

Subsequently to this affecting occurrence, there was little in the life of Aaron that demands particular notice. During the forty years that he discharged the priestly office, his duties were apparently at tended to with assiduity, and his general conduct, excepting the case of his joining Miriam in murmuring against Moses, and distrusting the divine her at Kadesh, was blameless, Numb. xii. xx. 11.

In the fortieth year after the departure of the Hebrews out of Egypt, and while they were en camped at Mosera, Aaron, by the divine command, ascended mount Hor. Here Moses divested him of his pontifical robes, which were placed upon his son Eleazar; "and Aaron died on the top of the mount," at the age of one hundred and twenty-three years, "and the congregation mourned for him thirty days," Numb. xx. 23—24 ; xxxiii. 38.

There is an apparent discrepancy in the scripture account of the place of Aaron's death. In the pas sages above referred to, it is said that it occurred in mount Hor ; but in Deut. x. 6. it is stated to have been at Mosera, or more properly, according to the Hebrew form of the word, at Moser. The difficulty, however, is removed, by supposing that the place Mosera lay near the foot of mount Hor, perhaps on the elevated open plain from which the mountain rises, as described by Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, p. 430. Josephus, Eusebius, and Jerome, all agree in placing the sepulchre of Aaron upon the summit of Mount Hor, where it is still preserved and venerated by the Arabs. When the supposed tomb was visited by Mr. Legh, it was attended by a crippled Arab hermit, about eighty years of age, who conducted the travelers into a small white building, crowned by a cupola. The monument itself is about three feet high, and is patched together out of fragments of stone and marble. The proper tomb is excavated in the rock below. See Hor.

1. In reviewing the life of Aaron, we can scarcely fail to remark the manner of his introduction into the history. He at once appears as a kind of assist ant, and so far an inferior, to his brother Moses ; yet he had some advantages ,which seem to have entitled him to prior consideration. He was the elder brother, an eloquent speaker, and also favored by divine inspiration. We have no cause assigned why he was not preferred to Moses, in respect of authority ; and therefore no other cause can now be assigned than the divine good pleasure, acting perhaps with reference to the superior education and consequent influence of Moses.

2. Among the most confirming signs given by God to Moses, may be placed the interview with his brother Aaron at mount Horeb. This being predict ed by God, and directly taking place, must have been very convincing to Moses. (See something similar in the case of Jeremiah, chap, xxxii. 8.) It should seem also, that Aaron would not have undertaken a journey of two months, from Egypt to mount Sinai, at great hazard and expense, unless he had been well assured of the authority which suit him ; neither could he have expected to find Moses where he did find him, unless by divine direction ; since the place, afterwards called the mount of God, was then undistinguished and unfrequented. Aaron, therefore, was a sign to Moses, as Moses was a sign to Aaron.

3. It seems probable that Aaron was in circumstances above those of the lower class of people in Egypt. Had he been among those who were kept to their daily bondage, he could ill have spared time and cost for a journey to Hora. Although the brothers, then, had no pretension to sovereign authority by descent, yet they were of consideration among the Israelites, either by property, or office, or perhaps from the fact of Moses' long residence and education at the Egyptian court ; which could not fail to be a source of influence to himself and to his family. Both Moses and Aaron seem to be acknowledged by Pharaoh, and by many of his servants, as persons of consideration, and as proper agents for transacting business between the Israelites and the king. Aaron performed the miracles before Pharaoh, too, without any wonder being expressed by him, how a person like him should acquire such skill and eloquence. Had Moses and Aaron been merely private persons, Pharaoh would, no doubt, have punished their intrusion and impertinence.

4. We cannot palliate the sin of which Aaron was guilty, when left in charge of Israel, in conjunction with Hur, while Moses was in the mount, receiving the law. His authority should have been exerted to restrain the people's infatuation, instead of forwarding their design. (See Calf.) As to his personal concern in the affair, we may remark, that if his own faith or patience was exhausted, or if he suppose Moses to be dead, then there could have been no collusion between them. Nor durst he have done as his did, had he expected the immediate return of Moses His activity in building the altar to the calf render his subsequent submission to Moses utterly inexplicable, had not a divine conviction been employed or the occasion. It is to be remarked, that nothing i said of the interference of Hur, the coadjutor o Aaron in the government of the people. The latts seems to have shrunk with unholy timidity from his duty of resistance to the proceedings of the people, fearing their disposition, as "set on mischief," which he pleads in excuse, Exod. xxxi 22—24.

5. The sedition of Aaron and Miriam again Moses, (Numb. xii. 1.) affords another argument against the supposition of collusion between  brothers. Aaron assumes, at first, a high tone, as pretends to no less gifts than his brother ; but I afterwards acknowledges his folly, and, with Miriai submits. Aaron was not visited with the lepros but he could well judge of its reality on his sister it was his proper office to exclude her from the can for seven days ; and by his expression of " flesh lit consumed," it should seem that it was tut inveteri kind of the disease, and therefore the more sign Aaron's affection, interest, and passion, all conspired to harden him against any thing less than full conviction of a divine interposition. But he well knew that it was not in the power of Moses to inflict this disease, in so sudden and decided a manner.

6. The departure of Aaron for death, has some thing in it very singular and impressive. In the sight of all the congregation, he quits the camp for the mountain, where he is to die. On the way, Moses his brother, and Eleazar his son, divest him of his pontifical habits, and attend him to the last. We view, in imagination, the feeble old man ascending the mount, there transferring the insignia of his office to his son, and giving up the ghost, with that faith, that resignation, that meekness, which became one who had been honored with the Holy Spirit, and with the typical representation of the great High- priest himself.

7. In the general character of Aaron there was much of the meekness of his brother Moses. He seems to have been willing to serve his brethren, upon all occasions; and was too easily persuaded against his own judgment. This appears when the people excited him to make the golden calf, and when Miriam urged him to rival his brother.

8. When we consider the talents of Aaron, his natural eloquence, and his probable acquirements in knowledge, that God often spake to him as well as to Moses, and that Egyptian priests were scribes, as a duty of their profession ; it is not very unlikely, that he assisted his brother in writing some parts of the books which now bear the name of Moses ; that, at least, he kept journals of public transactions ; that he transcribed, perhaps, the orders of Moses, especially those relating to the priests. If this be admissible, then we account at once for such difference of style as appears in these books, and for such smaller variations in different places, as would naturally arise from two persons recording the same facts ; we ac count for this at once, without, in any degree, lessening the authority, the antiquity, or the real value of these books. It accounts, also, for the third person being used when speaking of Moses : perhaps, too, for some of the praise and commendation of Moses, which is most remarkable where Aaron is most in fault. See Numb. xii. 3. In Deuteronomy, Moses uses the pronouns, /, and me: "I said," — " the Lord said to me," which are rarely or never used in the former books. See Bible.