Aaron

Aaron is the older brother of Moses by three years and the first high priest of Israel. Born to Amram and Jochebed of the tribe of Levi, he survived Pharaoh's order to drown Hebrew newborn boys, and was already raising a family in Egypt when the LORD called Moses from the burning bush. The LORD answered Moses's reluctance by giving him Aaron — Aaron the Levite ... is coming forth to meet thee — and the brothers stood together before Pharaoh through the ten plagues and the Exodus.

At Sinai, Aaron and his sons were set apart as the first priests of the new nation, consecrated by Moses in an eight-day ordination of blood, oil, and fire. The priesthood ran through Aaron's family for the rest of Israel's history — a thousand years of high priests, every one of them his descendant. Aaron's failures are not hidden by the text: at Sinai he yielded to the people's demand and shaped the golden calf; at Hazeroth he and Miriam grumbled against Moses; in chapters too painful for the priesthood to forget, his sons Nadab and Abihu were consumed by fire for offering strange fire before the LORD.

Aaron died on Mount Hor at the age of one hundred and twenty-three. He, like Moses, did not enter the Promised Land. His rod, which had budded as a sign of the LORD's chosen priesthood (Numbers 17), was laid up before the testimony. The New Testament identifies Christ as the High Priest of a better covenant — but always with reference to Aaron, the line he both fulfills and surpasses.