Numbers 3:1

THE SONS OF AARON CONSECRATED, Numbers 3:1-4.

Because man is a religious being whose hopes and fears are constantly grasping the invisible and the immortal, his imperative religious wants require the ministry of a class of men set apart from secular cares and dedicated solely to sacred offices. Since they touch the deepest springs of human action and national character, it can never be a matter of indifference who shall sway the influence of the priestly office. “He who would rule a nation must first conciliate its priests.” Augustus did not complete the subversion of the Roman Republic until he created himself Pontifex Maximus. It is the prerogative of God to select his own priesthood. They are to be his apostles to man, and man’s representatives before him. Chosen by reason of their personal fitness, they hold their sacred office only so long as that fitness shall continue. The Lord chose Aaron for the office of high priest. That there might be some always in training for the succession, he made the priesthood conditionally hereditary. When one branch of the family became hopelessly corrupt, it was either disqualified for the headship or wholly repudiated, and another branch was chosen. 1 Samuel 2:27-36.

1. The generations Hebrews, toldoth as in Genesis 5:1 the descendants. This term as here used indicates the Levitical families generally, because Aaron and Moses, when Jehovah spake on Sinai, were exalted to be the spiritual fathers of the tribe of Levi, of which they were members.

Of Aaron Aaron is placed before Moses because of his high priesthood. The generations of a person are commonly inserted in Scripture history at a “crisis when either a signal and accomplished fulfilment of the Divine counsels is to be indicated, or a stage has been reached which establishes a basis for a fulfilment to be narrated at large in the sequel.”

And Moses The posterity of Moses may be expected to follow, but it is not found. For this omission we find no very satisfactory explanation. Prof. Bush partially relieves the difficulty when he says that “Moses’s lineage is probably included under the general name Amramite, Numbers 3:27, embracing all the children and grandchildren of Amram, with the exceptions only of Moses and Aaron.” The sons of Moses were ranked as Levites, since their father’s extraordinary office was not hereditary. Hence his sons are enumerated as Levites, (see 1 Chronicles xxiii, 14,) where the family record of Moses is inserted.

In the day This was the register of Aaron’s sons then living when Moses went up to the summit of Sinai. But two were judicially smitten by Jehovah before the awful transactions of the mount were concluded, so that at the time of the present enumeration they were not living.

Mount Sinai Of the Sinaitic group, the peak which bears the name of Jebel Musa, or Mount of Moses, was formerly identified by travellers as Mount Sinai. But the hypothesis that this peak is the peak from which the Decalogue was proclaimed to man must be abandoned, because the plain at its base is, in the words of Stanley, “rough, uneven, and narrow,” and utterly insufficient for the vast Hebrew host who are represented as spectators of that tremendous manifestation of Divine power. Military surveys confirm this conclusion, and hence Jebel Musa, the traditional Mount Sinai, has been abandoned. At the northern extremity of the Sinaitic range is found Ras Suf-safeh, with two wadies or valleys opening from its foot, where there is space for the entire assembly of Israel to gaze upon its summit, taking the highest estimate of their number. Modern travellers are quite unanimous in the opinion that this peak is Sinai. See notes on Exodus 3:1; Exodus 19:2. Dr. Robinson, who rejects the claims of Jebel Musa, says of the peak Ras Sufsafeh, which he calls Horeb: “We were surprised, as well as gratified, to find here, in the inmost recesses of these dark granite cliffs, this fine plain spread out before the mountain, because even to the present day it is a current opinion among scholars that no open space exists among these mountains; and I know not when I have felt a thrill of stronger emotion than when, in first crossing the plain, the dark precipices of Horeb rising in solemn grandeur before us, we became aware of the entire adaptedness of the scene to the purposes for which it was chosen by the Hebrew legislator.”