The End of an Aaron
Numbers 20: 22-29
So the group makes it to Mount Hor- and God has a less than happy announcement. He tells Moses and Aaron to have Aaron and his son Eleazor go up the mountain- this is the end of the line for Moses' brother. There's no indication that Aaron is sickly, or close to dying- he simply is not going to be allowed to enter the promised land because of that whole water striking incident. Aaron's clothes are to be removed and put on his son. This seems to be a passing-of-the-baton ceremony. I think these ceremonies are more dignified when they don't require old men to take their clothes off.
This punishment is especially interesting because I'm not really sure what Aaron did. All the action mentioned earlier in the chapter is Moses centered, but Aaron is punished- and punished before Moses. Maybe this is because Moses is doing the telling. Is he simply taking all of the blame as a "humble" narrator and we don't have a real sense of how Aaron was actually involved?
This must have been unsettling to Moses on two levels. Not only is he about to lose his brother, but he has to guess that bad things are coming to him, too. We're both to blame..he's about to die- now I just wait to find out my own fate.
Moses, his brother and nephew go up the mountain, but only Moses and Eleazar come down. When the community hears of Aaron's death, they mourn for about a month.
This is a difficult passage to dig a moral out of. Sin will get you in the end? God doesn't forget? Even God's leaders are prone to fall? Not even Aaron can get to the promised land?
Maybe the bigger lesson is Jesus appreciation. Without Him, we may find ourselves with the same fate as Aaron, dying on a mountain after struggling so long in the wilderness.
Numbers 20: 22-29
So the group makes it to Mount Hor- and God has a less than happy announcement. He tells Moses and Aaron to have Aaron and his son Eleazor go up the mountain- this is the end of the line for Moses' brother. There's no indication that Aaron is sickly, or close to dying- he simply is not going to be allowed to enter the promised land because of that whole water striking incident. Aaron's clothes are to be removed and put on his son. This seems to be a passing-of-the-baton ceremony. I think these ceremonies are more dignified when they don't require old men to take their clothes off.
This punishment is especially interesting because I'm not really sure what Aaron did. All the action mentioned earlier in the chapter is Moses centered, but Aaron is punished- and punished before Moses. Maybe this is because Moses is doing the telling. Is he simply taking all of the blame as a "humble" narrator and we don't have a real sense of how Aaron was actually involved?
This must have been unsettling to Moses on two levels. Not only is he about to lose his brother, but he has to guess that bad things are coming to him, too. We're both to blame..he's about to die- now I just wait to find out my own fate.
Moses, his brother and nephew go up the mountain, but only Moses and Eleazar come down. When the community hears of Aaron's death, they mourn for about a month.
This is a difficult passage to dig a moral out of. Sin will get you in the end? God doesn't forget? Even God's leaders are prone to fall? Not even Aaron can get to the promised land?
Maybe the bigger lesson is Jesus appreciation. Without Him, we may find ourselves with the same fate as Aaron, dying on a mountain after struggling so long in the wilderness.
No comments:
Post a Comment