The Priest: Aaron (3 page)

“Your son is ill.”

“Zipporah circumcised him two days ago.”

Aaron winced.
Eliezer
meant “my God is help.” But in which God did Moses place his hope? Zipporah sat beside her son, dark eyes downcast, and dabbed his forehead with a damp cloth. Aaron asked why Moses had not done it himself when his son was eight days old as the Jews had done since the days of Abraham.

Moses bowed his head. “It is easier to remember the ways of your people when you dwell among them, Aaron. As I learned when I circumcised Gershom, Midianites consider the rite repugnant, and Jethro, Zipporah’s father, is a priest of Midian.” He looked at Aaron. “In deference to him, I did not circumcise Eliezer. When God spoke to me, Jethro gave me his blessing, and we left the tents of Midian. I knew my son must be circumcised. Zipporah argued against it and I delayed, not wanting to press my ways on her. I didn’t see it as rebellion until the Lord Himself sought to take my life. I told Zipporah that unless my sons both bore the mark of the Covenant on their flesh, I would die and Eliezer would be cut off from God and His people. Only then did she herself take the flint to our son’s flesh.”

Troubled, Moses looked at the feverish boy. “My son would not even remember how the mark came to be on his flesh had I obeyed the Lord instead of bending to others. He suffers now because of my disobedience.”

“He will heal soon, Moses.”

“Yes, but I will remember the cost to others of my disobedience.” Moses looked out the doorway to the mountain and then at Aaron. “I have much to tell you when you are not too tired to listen.”

“My strength returned the moment I saw you.”

Moses took up his staff and rose, and Aaron followed. When they stood in the open, Moses stopped. “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob appeared to me in a burning bush on that mountain,” Moses said. “He has seen the affliction of Israel and is come to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey. He is sending me to Pharaoh so that I may bring His people out of Egypt to worship Him at this mountain.” Moses gripped his staff and rested his forehead against his hands as he spoke all the words the Lord had spoken to him on the mountain. Aaron felt the truth of them in his soul, drinking them in like water.
The Lord is sending Moses to deliver us!

“I pleaded with the Lord to send someone else, Aaron. I said who am I to go to Pharaoh? I said my own people will not believe me. I told him I have never been eloquent, that I’m slow of speech and tongue.” He let out his breath slowly and faced Aaron. “And the Lord whose name is I A
M THE
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said you will be my spokesman.”

Aaron felt a sudden rush of fear, but it subsided in the answer of a lifetime prayer. The Lord had heard the cry of His people. Deliverance was at hand. The Lord had seen their misery and was about to put an end to it. Aaron was too filled with emotion to speak.

“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Aaron? I’m afraid of Pharaoh. I’m afraid of my own people. So the Lord has sent you to stand with me and be my spokesman.”

The question hung unspoken between them. Was he willing to stand with Moses?

“I am your older brother. Who better to speak for you than I?”

“Are you not afraid, Brother?”

“What does a slave’s life matter in Egypt, Moses? What has my life ever mattered? Yes, I’m afraid. I have been afraid all my life. I’ve bent my back to taskmasters, and felt the lash when I dared look up. I speak boldly enough in the privacy of my own house and among my brethren, but it comes to naught. Nothing changes. My words are but wind, and I thought my prayers were, too. Now, I know better. This time will be different. It won’t be the words of a slave that are heard from my lips, but the Word of the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”

“If they don’t believe us, the Lord has given me signs to show them.” Moses told him how his staff had become a snake and his hand had become leprous. “And if that is not enough, when I pour water from the Nile, it will become blood.”

Aaron didn’t ask for a demonstration. “They will believe, just as I believe.”

“You believe me because you are my brother, and because God sent you to me. You believe because God has changed your heart toward me. You have not always looked at me as you do now, Aaron.”

“Yes, because I thought you were free when I wasn’t.”

“I never felt at home in Pharaoh’s house. I wanted to be among my own people.”

“And we scorned and rejected you.” Perhaps it was living among two separate peoples and being accepted by neither that made Moses so humble. But he must do as God commanded, or the Hebrews would go on as before, toiling in the mud pits and dying with their faces in the dust. “God has chosen you to deliver us, Moses. And so you shall. Whatever God tells you, I will speak. If I have to shout, I will make the people hear.”

Moses looked up at the mountain of God. “We will start for Egypt in the morning. We will gather the elders of Israel and tell them what the Lord has said. Then we will all go before Pharaoh and tell him to let God’s people go into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God.” He shut his eyes as though in pain.

“What is it, Moses? What’s wrong?”

“The Lord will harden Pharaoh’s heart and strike Egypt with signs and wonders so that when we leave, we will not go empty-handed, but with many gifts of silver, gold, and clothing.”

Aaron laughed bitterly. “And so God will plunder Egypt as Egypt plundered us! I never thought to see justice prevail in my lifetime. It will be a joyous sight!”

“Do not be eager to see their destruction, Aaron. They are people like us.”

“Not like us.”

“Pharaoh will not relent until his own firstborn son is dead. Then he will let us go.”

Aaron had been beneath the heel of Egyptian slave drivers too long and had felt the lash too many times to feel pity for any Egyptian, but he saw Moses did.

They set off at daylight, Zipporah taking charge of the donkey carrying provisions and pulling a litter. Eliezer was improved, but not well enough to walk with his mother and his brother. Aaron and Moses walked ahead, each with a shepherd’s staff in hand.

Heading north, they took the trade route between Egypt and southern Canaan, traveling by way of Shur. It was more direct than traveling south and west and then north through the desert. Aaron wanted to hear everything the Lord had said to Moses. “Tell me everything again. From the beginning.” How he wished he had been with Moses and seen the burning bush for himself! He knew what it was to hear the sound of God’s voice, but to stand in His presence was beyond imagining.

When they reached Egypt, Aaron took Moses, Zipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer into his house. Moses was overcome with emotion when Miriam threw her arms around him and Aaron’s sons surrounded him. Aaron almost pitied Moses, for he saw that Hebrew words still did not come easily to his brother, so he spoke for him. “God has called Moses to deliver our people from slavery. The Lord Himself will perform great signs and wonders so that Pharaoh will let us go.”

“Our mother prayed you were the promised one of God.” Miriam embraced Moses again. “She was certain when Pharaoh’s daughter saved you that God was protecting you for some great purpose.”

Zipporah sat with her sons, watching from the corner of the room, dark-eyed and troubled.

Aaron’s sons went back and forth through Goshen, the region of Egypt that had been given to the Hebrews centuries earlier and in which they now lived in captivity. The men carried the message to the elders of Israel that God had sent them a deliverer and the elders were to gather and hear his message from God.

Meanwhile, Aaron talked and prayed with his brother. He could see him struggling against fear of Pharaoh and the people and the call of God on him. Moses had little appetite. And he looked more tired when he rose in the morning than when he had retired to bed the evening before. Aaron did his best to encourage him. Surely that was why God had sent him to find Moses. He loved his brother. He was strengthened at his presence and eager to serve.

“You give me the words God speaks to you, Moses, and I will speak them. You will not go alone before Pharaoh. We go together. And surely the Lord Himself will be with us.”

“How is it you have no fear?”

No fear? Less perhaps. Moses had not grown up suffering physical oppression. He hadn’t lived longing for the promise of God’s intervention. Nor had he been surrounded by fellow slaves and family members who relied on each other for strength just to survive each day. Had Moses ever known love other than those first few years at his mother’s breast? Had Pharaoh’s daughter regretted adopting him? In what position had her rebellion against Pharaoh placed her, and what repercussions had it caused Moses?

It occurred to Aaron that he had never thought of these things before, too caught up in his own feelings, petty resentments, and childish jealousies. Unlike Moses, he hadn’t grown up as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter among people who despised him. Had Moses learned to keep out of sight and say little in order to survive? Aaron hadn’t been caught between two worlds and accepted in neither. He hadn’t sought to align himself with his people, only to find they hated him as well. Nor had he needed to run away from Egyptian and Hebrew alike and seek refuge among foreigners in order to stay alive. Nor had he spent years alone in the desert tending sheep.

Why had he never thought of these things before? Was it only now that his mind and heart were open to consider what Moses’ life must have been like? Aaron was filled with compassion for his brother. He ached to help him, to press him forward to the task God had given him. For the Lord Himself said Moses was to be Israel’s deliverer, and Aaron knew God had sent him to stand beside his brother and do whatever Moses could not do.

Lord, You have heard our cry!

“Ah, Moses, I’ve spent my life in fear, bowing and scraping before overseers and taskmasters, and still getting the lash when I failed to work fast enough for them. And now, for the first time in my life, I have hope.” Tears came in a flood. “Hope casts out fear, Brother. We have God’s promise that the day of our salvation is at hand! The people will rejoice when they hear, and Pharaoh will cower before the Lord.”

Moses’ eyes were filled with sorrow. “He won’t listen.”

“How can he not listen when he sees the signs and wonders?”

“I grew up with Raamses. He is arrogant and cruel. And now that he sits on the throne, he believes he is god. He won’t listen, Aaron, and many will suffer because of him. Our people will suffer and so will his.”

“Pharaoh will see the truth, Moses. Pharaoh will come to know that the Lord is God. And that truth will set us free.”

Moses wept.

Israel gathered, and Aaron spoke all the words the Lord gave to Moses. The crowd was dubious, some outspoken and some derisive. “This is your brother who murdered the Egyptian and ran away, and he is to deliver us from Egypt? Are you out of your mind? God would not use a man such as he!”

“What’s he doing back here? He’s more Egyptian than Hebrew!”

“He’s a Midianite now!”

Some laughed.

Aaron felt the rush of hot blood. “Show them, Moses. Give them a sign!”

Moses threw his staff on the ground and it became a huge cobra. The people cried out and scattered. Moses reached down and took the snake by the tail and it became his staff again. The people closed in around him. “There are other signs! Show them, Moses.” Moses put his hand inside his cloak and drew it out, leprous. The people gasped and recoiled from him. When he tucked his hand inside his cloak and drew it out as clean as a newborn child’s, they cried out in jubilation.

There was no need for Moses to touch his staff to the Nile and turn it to blood, for the people were already shouting with joy. “Moses! Moses!”

Aaron raised his arms, his staff in one hand and shouted, “Praise be to God who has heard our prayers for deliverance! All praise be to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”

The people cried out with him and fell to their knees, bowing low and worshiping the Lord.