There are few acts in all recorded history, including the awful massacres of the Albigenses by Simon de Montfort and the Abbot Arnold, more indefensible than this wholesale murder by Moses of several thousand people who had trusted him, and whom he had entrusted to the care of his own brother, who participated in their crime, supposing that they had committed any crime saving the crime of tiring of his dictatorship.
The effect of this massacre was to put Moses, for the rest of his life, in the hands of the Levites with Aaron at their head, for only by having a body of men stained with his own crimes and devoted to his fortunes could Moses thenceforward hope to carry his adventure to a good end. Otherwise he faced certain and ignominious failure. His preliminary task, therefore, was to devise for the Levites a reward which would content them. His first step in this direction was to go back to the mountain and seek a new inspiration and a revelation more suited to the existing conditions than the revelation conveyed before the golden calf incident.
Up to this time there is nothing in Jewish history to show that the priesthood was developing into a privileged and hereditary caste. With the consecration of Aaron as high priest the process began. Moses spent another six weeks in seclusion on the mount. And as soon as he returned to the camp he proclaimed how the people should build and furnish a sanctuary in which the priesthood should perform its functions. These directions were very elaborate and detailed, and part of the furnishings of the sanctuary consisted in the splendid and costly garments for Aaron and his sons “for glory and for beauty.”
“And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats: And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood, throughout their generations.
“Thus did Moses: according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he.”
It followed automatically that, with the creation of a great vested interest centred in an hereditary caste of priests, the pecuniary burden on the people was correspondingly increased and that thenceforward Moses became nothing but the representative of that vested interest: as reactionary and selfish as all such representatives must be. How selfish and how reactionary may readily be estimated by glancing at Numbers XVIII, where God’s directions are given to Aaron touching what he was to claim for himself, and what the Levites were to take as their wages for service. It was indeed liberal compensation. A good deal more than much of the congregation thought such services worth.
In the first place, Aaron and the Levites with him for their service “of the tabernacle” were to have “all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance.” But this was a small part of their compensation. There were beside perquisites, especially those connected with the sacrifices which the people were constrained to make on the most trifling occasions; as, for example, whenever they became unclean, through some accident, as by touching a dead body:
“This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every oblation of their’s, every meat offering of their’s, and every sin offering of their’s, and every trespass offering of their’s, which they shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and thy sons.
“In the most holy place shalt thou eat it; every male shall eat it; it shall be holy unto thee.
“And this is thine.... All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the first fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee; … every one that is clean in thine house shall eat of it.
“Everything devoted in Israel shall be thine....
“All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute forever: it is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord unto thee and to thy seed with thee.”
Also, on the taking of a census, such as occurred at Sinai, Aaron received a most formidable perquisite.
The Levites were not to be numbered; but there was to be a complicated system of redemption at the rate of “five shekels by the poll, after the shekel of the sanctuary.”
“And Moses took the redemption money of them that were over and above them that were redeemed by the Levites: Of the first-born of the children of Israel took he the money; a thousand three hundred and three score and five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary; And Moses gave the money of them that were redeemed unto Aaron and to his sons.”
Assuming the shekel of those days to have weighed two hundred and twenty-four grains of silver, its value in our currency would have been about fifty-five cents, but its purchasing power, twelve hundred years before Christ, would have been, at the very most moderate estimate, at least ten for one, which would have amounted to between six and seven thousand dollars in hard cash for no service whatever, which, considering that the Israelites were a wandering nomadic horde in the wilderness, was, it must be admitted, a pretty heavy charge for the pleasure of observing the performances of Aaron and his sons, in their gorgeous garments.
Also, under any sedentary administration it followed that the high priest must become the most considerable personage in the community, as well as one of the richest. And thus as payment for the loyalty to himself of the Levites during the massacre of the golden calf, Moses created a theocratic aristocracy headed by Aaron and his sons, and comprising the whole tribe of Levi, whose advancement in fortune could not fail to create discontent. It did so: a discontent which culminated very shortly after in the rebellion of Korah, which brought on a condition of things at Kadesh which contributed to make the position of Moses intolerable.
Moses was one of those administrators who were particularly reprobated by Saint Paul; Men who “do evil,” as in the slaughter of the feasters who set up the golden calf, “that good may come,” and “whose damnation,” therefore, “is just.” [Footnote: Romans III, 8.]
And Moses wrought thus through ambition, because, though personally disinterested, he could not endure having his will thwarted. Aaron had nearly the converse of such a temperament. Aaron appears to have had few or no convictions; it mattered little to him whether he worshipped Jehovah on Sinai or the golden calf at the foot of Sinai, provided he were paid at his own price. And he took care to exact a liberal price. Also the inference to be drawn from the way in which Moses behaved to him is that Moses understood what manner of man he was.
Jethro stood higher in the estimation of Moses, and Moses did his best to keep Jethro with him, but, apparently, Jethro had watched Moses closely and was not satisfied with his conduct of the exodus. On the eve of departure from Sinai, just as the Israelites were breaking camp, Moses sought out Jethro and said to him; “We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you; come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the Lord has spoken good concerning Israel.
“And he said unto him, I will not go; but I will depart to mine own land, and to my kindred.”
Not discouraged, Moses kept on urging: “Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes.
“And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee.” It has been inferred from a passage in Judges, [Footnote: Judges I, 16.] that Moses induced Jethro to reconsider his refusal and that he did accompany the congregation in its march to Kadesh, but, on the whole, the text of the Bible fails to bear out such inference, for there is no subsequent mention of Jethro in the books which treat directly of the trials of the journey, although there would seem to have been abundant occasion for Moses to have called upon Jethro for aid had Jethro been present. In his apparent absence the march began, under the leadership of the Lord and Moses, very much missing Jethro.
They departed from the mount: “And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day,” when they left the camp “to search out a resting-place.” Certainly, on this occasion, the Lord selected a poor spot for the purpose, quite different from such an one as Jethro would have been expected to have pointed out; for the children