God’s Word for You

Numbers 20:22-29 The death of Aaron

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, October 25, 2021

The Death of Aaron

22 The entire community of the Israelites set out from Kadesh and came to Mount Hor. 23 The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor along the border of Edom’s territory. He said, 24 “Aaron will be gathered to his people, because he cannot enter into the land which I have given to the Israelites, because you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah. 25 Take Aaron and Eleazar his son and bring them up to the top of Mount Hor. 26 Remove Aaron’s garments and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron will be gathered to his fathers and die there.”

Israel traveled north from Kadesh and approached the southeastern borders of the Promised Land. Just sticking their toes, as it were, into Edomite territory, they stopped at the mountain overlooking the Arabah depression south of the Dead Sea. This was Mount Hor, where hard and unyielding tan, orange and black outcroppings thrust to a twin peak (Jebel Harun) 4780 feet above sea level and more than 6000 feet above the Dead Sea, the highest mountain in that region. The summit is never snow-covered, but the air is better there than at the base.

God’s message to Aaron is not what we might expect. Aaron is held accountable for the same incident Moses had been condemned for, which was striking the rock at Meribah and using “we” when speaking about the miracle of the water from the rock. Aaron was with Moses at the time, and he didn’t rebuke Moses or correct him. Now it was time for Aaron to be gathered home to heaven, but it was not going to happen the way it does for most people. Rather than simply dying in his bed, he had to get up, get fully dressed in his high priestly robes, climb this mountain with his son Eleazar, and invest his son with his robes and therefore his office. Then he was going to die on the mountain.

27 Moses did just as the LORD commanded. They went up to the top of Mount Hor in the sight of the entire community. 28 Moses removed Aaron’s garments and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron died there on the top of the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain. 29 When the entire community saw that Aaron had passed away, the entire house of Israel wept for Aaron for thirty days.

Aaron put on his linen robe and woven tunic or overshirt, the gold sash, the gold breastpiece, the ephod, and the turban. Then the three men, Moses, Aaron, and Eleazar, ascended the slope of Mount Hor in the sight of everyone in Israel. There was no farewell speech for the ancient priest. Aaron was now 123 years old (Numbers 33:37-38; compare Exodus 7:7). Reaching the top, they did as God commanded. Aaron’s garments were removed and placed onto Eleazar.

And then? Aaron died, and all Israel mourned. I have seen on many occasions a person close to death who waits for a certain someone to arrive at the bedside (son, friend, or pastor), and then the body gives out. At conception is the creation of the person, both body and soul (Job 10:10-12). At death, the soul and body separate, so that “if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Corinthians 5:1). The spirit returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7). So Aaron closed his eyes in death, and his brother and son descended the mountain together. Today there is a shrine of brick, stone and a plastered dome on top of Mount Hor. The site was maintained by Greek Christians at least up to the seventh century AD, and today it is in the custody of the shrine which, like the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, was built using the design of a Greek Orthodox Church.

Some things here should be said about the body that dies. The body returns to dust, decaying eventually to whatever we wish to call atoms or molecules. Any argument that maintains that it would be “inconvenient” for God to reassemble a decomposed body, blown by the wind across the face of the earth as dust and debris, denies God’s omnipotence. “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27).

The dead body, God tells us, rests until the day of the resurrection of all flesh. Moses would be told, “You are going to rest with your fathers” (Deuteronomy 31:16). The spirit, which includes the memories, personality, faith and powers of reasoning, is very much what most of us would think of as “I” the way Peter does: “I will soon put (the tent of his body) aside” (2 Peter 1:14).

The soul that has rejected Christ will be judged and will immediately begin to suffer in hell (Luke 16:23; Mark 16:16). “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:8). The soul that has trusted in Christ will immediately be taken to God in heaven (Luke 16:22). We will then await the resurrection, and we will be united with God, united with loved ones and all believers of the past and of the future.

All of us can compare ourselves with Aaron. He was a man who knew his Lord and who served faithfully. He was also a man who was sinful, who knew his sin, and who could do nothing about it. Even though he himself carried out the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement, he had to sacrifice a bull for his own sins and a mere goat for the sins of the rest of the nation. But the blood would have to be sacrificed again and again, year upon year, because only the blood of Christ atones for all of the sins of all mankind, once for all (Hebrews 10:2,10). So we look to Christ and we put our trust in him. We await his voice calling us out of our graves (John 5:28). We will awaken from death (Daniel 12:2) and rise, in the flesh (Job 19:26), to be taken up into heaven. Do not fear death, not even the pain, if any, that might come with it. Do not fear the judgment, because we have no judgment apart from Christ’s grace and mercy. Our sins have been done away with, and we already have a place, ready and waiting for us, in Paradise.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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