AARON, the first high-priest of the Jews, eldest son of Amram and Jochebad, and brother of Moses. By the father's side he was great-grandson, and by the mother's, grandson of Levi. He was born B.C. 1574 (Hales B.C. 1730), three years before Moses, with whom he was associated to conduct the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan. To this office he received the Divine appointment in consequence of his persuasive fluency of speech, a quality in which Moses was his inferior (Ex. iv. 16; vii. 1).
During the absence of Moses in Mount Sinai receiving the tables of the law, the Israelites, regarding Aaron as their head, clamorously demanded that he should provide them with a visible symbolic image of their God for worship. With this demand he weakly complied, and out of the ornaments of gold contributed for the purpose he cast the figure of the calf, doubtless the same as the Bull-god Apis, the object of Egyptian worship at Memphis. For this sin the Israelites were decimated by sword and plague (Ex. xxxii.)
In obedience to the Divine instruction received by Moses
in the Mount, Aaron was appointed high-priest, his sons and descendants, priests, and his tribe, that of Levi, was set apart as the sacerdotal caste. The office was filled by Aaron for nearly forty years, his death occurring on Mount Hor, which he ascended with his brother Moses by the Divine command. He was 123 years of age when he died, his son and brother burying him in a cavern of the mountain.