Wednesday, September 17, 2014
The Role of Aaron
One thing we haven't brought up at all is the presence and role of Aaron (Moses' brother) in Exodus. I think it's interesting that God speaks through Moses who speaks through Aaron. I want to pose the question as to why this was needed? I know it says that Moses is not good with words, but if he's carrying the message of God, does he need to be or can he just repeat what God has said? It starts out with Moses and Aaron being a joint group, always together. God even calls Moses a god and Aaron his prophet. But later in Exodus, we see Moses speaking without Aaron. I feel like this shows a subtle character development in Moses. I feel like this is an interesting aspect to Exodus that we haven't covered at all.
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I was thinking along the same lines as you when it came to Aaron. It seems like the two brothers are the figure heads for leading the people of Israel. Moses does God's work and Aaron is the charismatic speaker who entrances the people in believing that Moses is following the Lord's will correctly. That's why the two brothers are always together. I feel like just repeating what God said would not be enough for some of the more stubborn Israelites (this is just speculation on my part) and that Aaron was there to better articulate God's commands. As Exodus proceeds, Moses does speak without Aaron because I feel like Aaron was just there to get the people of Israel convinced that Moses wasn't just pretending to hear God's voice. After the people were convinced (by Aaron plus the other tens of miracles), Aaron was no longer needed and the people could just follow Moses, finally being able to believe that he knows what he's doing. Of course, some of this is just making inferences, but it's the best explanation I could come up with while reading.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I'll throw in is a story I heard when I was younger learning about this.
ReplyDeleteAccording to some commentators, when Moses was growing up he was a very charismatic boy. Pharaoh's advisors warned him that this boy might come to take his power one day. Afraid, Pharaoh set up a test; he had 2 bowls sitting next to each other and made Moses choose from one of them. One bowl contained the King's crown while the other contained hot coals. If Moses went for the crown, it would be apparent that he wants the to be King.
Moses's initial reaction was to take the shiny gold crown. However, an angel came down and pushed Moses's hand to the coals. He took a coal and put it in his mouth. It became clear to Pharaoh that Moses was an innocent child. However, Moses was left with a speech problem for the rest of his life. That might explain why he must 'speak through Aaron.'
I have multiple theories for why Aaron might have spoken for Moses. It's quite possible, as Jesse mentioned above, that Aaron might have spoken for Moses if Moses had a speaking impediment, such as a stutter. In this case, God's ideas and words would only be able to be spread quickly and efficiently through the mouth of Aaron: maybe people with speaking impediments were frowned upon or not taken seriously during those times. Plus, if a person is being spoken for,
ReplyDeleteIt could mean that they are powerful enough to have a speaker in the first place (automatic respect from others for having a speaker). Second theory is that God makes Moses the "God" to Aaron's "Prophet" so that more people will believe that they are truly the word of God: a person with a prophet must be holy and have important ideas to get across. Last theory is not as exciting: power in numbers. Two is better than one, and for Moses, it was great having an extra person helping him spread the word (or spreading all the word, likely in Aaron's case).