Numbers 3:1-2: “These also [are] the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day [that] the LORD spake with Moses in mount Sinai. Num 3:2 And these [are] the names of the sons of Aaron; Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.”
In II Timothy 3:16 we learn that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. All Scripture, that word all is pasa in the Greek which means all and every single portion of Scripture. Every word every letter of Scripture is given by inspiration of God. In the Aramaic that is the word is kul which means each, any, all, whole, the entire Word of God. If that is the case then when I read a seemingly frivolous, inconsequential, insignificant, irrelevant, meaningless, minor, nonessential, nugatory, of not account, of no consequence, immaterial, casual, petty, paltry, slight, trifle, picayune, trivial, unnecessary, useless, worthless, zilch, zip passage like Numbers 3:1-2 I must conclude that it really does have some significance and importance to us or at least to me personally. I refuse to believe that God gave us this passage of Scripture just to fill up space because He ran out of things to say.
So what sort of message do we receive from a passage that simply tells us the names of the sons of Aaron? I don’t believe God gives us a passage of Scripture just to give us information; He gives us Scripture to teach us something that we can apply to our own personal lives. This was one of the primary reasons I was and am driven to studying the Talmud, Midrash, Targum and other works of Judaism because after ten years of Bible College and Seminary training I graduated with all my fancy degrees and did not really know the Bible. I knew a lot about the Bible, mission, evangelism, church planting, pastoral counseling, homiletics, and theology, but my knowledge of the Bible itself we limited. After ten years of formal Bible school training I may have read through the Book of Numbers only two times and even then it was just a reading and not a study. I am not condemning Bible colleges or seminaries; I am just saying that this goes to show you that all serious Bible study is to be done on a personal level. It is not something that you hear a lecture and take notes on, it is something that you read, meditate, pray over and discuss with fellow believers. It is a book written as a personal letter to each one of us to be interpreted as the Spirit of God leads you to your own personal understanding in the way that God created you and wants you to relate to Him as a person. Think of this this way, a wife and husband relate to each other with their own personal little things that they would do and say to each other and to no one else on the face of this earth.
So what in the world could Numbers 3:1-2 teach me about God and my relationship to God? Well, if you look at this passage very closely you see something strange, a hint that there is something deeper. The rabbis and sages call it a remez. Note that the passage starts off by saying: “These are the generations of Aaron and Moses” and then it goes on to just list the sons of Aaron but not Moses’s sons. The passage also finds it necessary to indicate that this was the day or time that God spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Also, I noticed one other thing. When the Bible talks of Moses and Aaron it almost always puts Moses before Aaron, however, in this case it is putting Aaron before Moses.
I have found that Christian commentators spend little time trying to explain these minute details. As far as Aaron coming before Moses this is explained away as the fact that the passage is referencing the priestly tribe and since Aaron was the father of the priestly tribe he is mentioned first. Moses’s children are not mentioned because they were in the private ranks of the Levites and the dignity of the priesthood was conferred exclusively on the descendants of Aaron. Another commentator simply said Aaron came first because he was the elder, which does not explain why Moses is listed before Aaron in other passages. Then too, what spiritual value, or message could there possibly be in all this. That is just a mere drippling of information that has not consequence, it does not help me in my relationship with God or help give me any encouragement when I have to take the Wicked Witch of East Cicero in my disability bus to her doctor’s appointment and she starts calling me a jerk and idiot because I took the Eisenhower Expressway rather than Roosevelt Road.
So this is why I turn to Jewish literature after my Christian teachers fail to give me any guidance. In the Talmud Sanhedrin 19b I read a comment on this passage of Scripture: “He who teaches the son of his fellow the Torah, Scripture ascribes it to him as if he had begotten him.” In Numbers 3:1-2 we learn that Aaron begot his sons, but Moses taught them and thus they are called by Moses name.
Look at the word generations which is toledoth in the Hebrew. This word come from the root word yalad which means to help to bring forth. Aaron helped to bring forth his sons by fathering them, Moses brought them forth through instructing in the words of God. Note the passage says in the days that the Lord spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The word for spoke is dabar which is also the word used for a word which come from the heart. Moses taught the children of Aaron the words of God’s heart and for that he was part of the generations of Aaron. I remember when I was the pastor of a church we had an elderly woman in the church who was never married and never had children of her own. Yet she led many to faith in Jesus during her lifetime. On Mother’s Day the church gave every mother a little gift. I made sure she accepted the gift as well for she was a spiritual mother. I got that idea from this obscure passage in Numbers.
Last week when the Wicked Witch of East Cicero began calling me a name best left to a word prefixed by the adjective beef with a y suffix at the end and commenting on my intelligence, I thought of Numbers 3:1 and what the Jewish Midrash taught me as the reason Aaron came before Moses when normally Moses’s name appears before Aaron. The Midrash teaches that God wanted to show that Moses and Aaron were both of equal value and importance to Him. God reminded me from Numbers 3:1 that the Wicked Witch of East Cicero was just as valuable and important to Him as I was to Him and although I did not feel at the time she was of any importance to me, she was very important to God. God does not play favorites liking the good better than the bad, like a mother who has two sons, one very saintly and just a real scoundrel, she loves both equally. Just because I read, study and know the Word of God where the Wicked Witch of East Cicero does not, it does not mean God loves me any more than her.
Every word, every letter of the Word of God is inspired and is profitable, even if it is one of the begats. You just need to let the Spirit of God reveal the message to you.
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