TOMB OF AARON

Tomb of Aaron, Mount Hor, courtesy, Wikipedia

On a clear day, if you look to the east into the East Bank from the Negev village of Paran on the Israeli side of the border, you can see in the distance, a white dome-shaped structure on a mountaintop. For thousands of years, this was considered to be the burial site of Aaron, the first High Priest of Israel. In 2019, this site made the news headlines in Israel and “Jordan”. Since around 1920 and continuing to this day, there have been numerous efforts on the part of the local Muslim Waqf, sometimes enthusiastically aided by the Zionists, to prohibit Jewish prayers at Jewish holy sites on both sides of the Jordan River, thereby erasing any Jewish connection to the ancestral homeland. As described in an article in the Times of Israel, the site was closed by “Jordan’s” Ministry of Awqaf Islamic Affairs and Antiquities after the “illegal entry” of the Jews (Israelis) to the site without knowledge of the ministry. The decision to close the site was made after Israeli tourists were filmed praying there. The Awqaf ministry strongly condemned the entry of the Jews and began an investigation to find out what happened and who was responsible for allowing them entry, according to the official Jordan News Agency. It went without saying that anti-Semitism on the part of the “Jordanian” officials was a major factor in their decision to close the site. “There is a Zionist scheme to claim ownership of any part of our Arab homeland, especially in archaeological sites,” said “Jordan’s” Tourism Minister Maha al-Khatib. “They want to convince the world that any place they went through even for two nights in the old days is their right, but we are not allowed to mention the history of our existence.”

Tour guide Roni Ayalon, who was with the group, described being subjected to humiliating treatment by “Jordanian” authorities – strip searches (both men and women), confiscation of religious symbols, etc.

“If there was this kind of humiliation of an Arab on our side who wanted to enter Jerusalem and they would dare to tell him to take off his shirt or confiscate his Koran, there would be a world war,” Ayalon said. “All the Arabs would jump up. But they can do whatever they want to us.”

A week later, through negotiations with Zionist authorities, the site was re-opened to tourists including Israelis, as long as they “follow the rules” and not pray there or anywhere else in the “country”, even in their hotel rooms.

According to the Biblical text, Aaron was the elder son of Amram and Yocheved of the tribe of Levi his great-grandfather; Moses, the other son, was three years younger, and Miriam, their sister, several years older (Ex. 2:4). During the slavery period of the Children of Israel in Egypt, while Moses was raised in the Egyptian royal court, and was later exiled to Midian, Aaron and his sister remained with their kinsmen. Here, Aaron gained a name for eloquent and persuasive speech; so that when the time came for the demand upon Pharaoh to release Israel from captivity, Aaron became his brother's nabi, or spokesman, to his own people (Ex. 4:16) and, after their unwillingness to hear, to Pharaoh himself (Ex. 7:9). At the command of Moses he stretched out his rod achieving victory over the rods of the Egyptian magicians, which it swallowed after all of their rods turned into serpents (Ex. 7:9). Later, Aaron stretched out his rod again in order to bring on the first of three plagues (Ex. 7:19, 8:1, 12). In the infliction of the remaining plagues he appears to have acted merely as the attendant of Moses, whose outstretched rod drew the divine wrath upon Pharaoh and his subjects (Ex. 9:23, 10:13, 22). Eventually, the Israelites were freed from their bondage. At the battle with Amalek he is chosen with Hur to support the hand of Moses that held the "rod of God" (Ex. 17:9). When the revelation was given to Moses at Sinai, he headed the elders of Israel who accompanied Moses on the way to the summit. Joshua, however, was admitted with Moses to the very presence of the Lord, while Aaron and Hur remained below to look after the people (Ex. 24:9-14). At the time when the tribe of Levi was set apart for the priestly service, Aaron was anointed and consecrated to the priesthood, arrayed in the robes of his office, and instructed in its manifold duties (Ex. 28 and 29). It was during the prolonged absence of Moses at Sinai that Aaron yielded to the clamors of the people, led by rebel leader Korah, who was also his first cousin, and helped to make a golden calf as a visible image of the divinity who had delivered them from Egypt (Ex. 32:1-6). As punishment, the Lord smote the calf worshippers by opening up the earth and swallowing up the guilty. At the intercession of Moses, Aaron was saved (Deut. 9:20; Ex. 32:35), although it was to Aaron's tribe of Levi that the work of punitive vengeance was committed (Ex. 32:26). Afterwards, the validity of the exclusive priesthood of the family of Aaron was attested. While all the Levites (and only Levites) were to be devoted to sacred services, the special charge of the sanctuary and the altar was committed to the Aaronites alone (Num. 18:1-7). Aaron, like Moses, was not permitted to enter Canaan.

Of the death of Aaron we have two accounts. The principal one gives a detailed statement to the effect that, soon after the above incident, Aaron, with his son Eleazar, and Moses, ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped him (Aaron) of his priestly garments, and transferred them to Eleazar. Aaron died on the summit of the mountain, and the people mourned for him thirty days (Num. 20:22-29; 33:38, 39). The other account is found in Deut. 10:6, where Moses is reported as saying that Aaron died at Mosera and was buried there. Mosera is not on Mount Hor, since the itinerary in Num. 33:31-37 records seven stages between the two points. The seeming contradiction was later explained by the rabbis in the following manner: Aaron's death on Mount Hor was marked by the defeat of the people in a war with the king of Arad, in consequence of which the Israelites fled, marching seven stations backward to Mosera, where they performed the rites of mourning for Aaron; wherefore it is said: "There [at Mosera] died Aaron." Centuries later, under the influence of the priesthood which shaped the destinies of the Israelites, having come under Persian rule in the 5^th century BCE, a different ideal of the priest was formed, and the prevailing tendency was to place Aaron on a footing equal to that of Moses.  

With the passage of time, the exact location of the Biblical sites, including Mount Hor, and Aaron’s tomb in particular, faded from the memory of the people. Before the advent of archaeology, Jewish and gentile scholars would often try to pinpoint the various Biblical locations according to their interpretations of what was written the sacred texts. Since the first century CE historical sources, mainly that of the Jewish historian Josephus, mention Aaron’s Tomb as being near Petra in the mountains of Edom, today in southwestern “Jordan”. For centuries, and every year on the first day of the Hebrew month of Av, the anniversary of Aaron’s death, Jewish pilgrims have gone to pray there. In the Byzantine period (4^th-6^th cs.) a chapel was built at the site, which was later turned into a mosque in the 14^th century. The site was rediscovered by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812, and was first visited by two Englishman, Irby and Mangles, six years later. Today, Mount Hor and Aaron’s Tomb is usually associated with the mountain near Petra in “Jordan”. The local Arab settlers in the area call it “Jabal Hārūn” (Aaron's Mountain).