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Wisdom of Solomon and 4 Maccabees retell the story of Aaron halting a plague, based on Numbers 16 but including a later tradition where the plague comes from a destroying angel sent by God. In these, Aaron overcomes this angel through prayer and ritual.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 18:22
Deuterocanon
20 The experience of death also touched the righteous, and a multitude were destroyed in the wilderness, but the wrath didn’t last long. 21 For a blameless man hurried to be their champion, bringing the weapon of his own ministry, prayer, and the atoning sacrifice of incense. He withstood the indignation and set an end to the calamity, showing that he was your servant. 22 And he overcame the anger, not by strength of body, not by force of weapons, but by his word, he subdued the avenger by bringing to remembrance oaths and covenants made with the fathers. 23 For when the dead had already fallen in heaps one upon another, he intervened and stopped the wrath, and cut off its way to the living. 24 For the whole world was pictured on his long robe, and the glories of the fathers were upon the engraving of the four rows of precious stones, and your majesty was upon the diadem on his head.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
4 Maccabees 7:11
Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
9 You, father, through your endurance confirmed our obedience to the law and brought it glory. You did not abandon the holiness you had praised, and by your deeds you made your words of divine philosophy believable. 10 Old man more powerful than tortures, elder more vigorous than fire, greatest king over the emotions, Eleazar! 11 For just as father Aaron, armed with the censer, ran through the crowd of people and defeated the angel of fire, 12 so Eleazar, the descendant of Aaron, though wasting away in the fire, did not abandon his reasoning. 13 What is most amazing is that although he was an old man, the strength of his body was already gone, his flesh hung loose, and his muscles were worn out, he became young again
Date: 19–100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Aaron was indeed highly revered in the Second Temple Period. Of all the illustrious ancestors, he receives the most space in Ben Sira’s encomium (Sirach 45:6–22) next to Simon II (Sirach 50:1–21). The specific episode recalled by the author is found in Numbers 16:41–50 and retold in Wisdom of Solomon 18:20–25. When the people grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wake of the rebellion of Korah, God sent a plague against the people in punishment. Aaron, however, taking a censer full of incense, ran into the thick of the plague and made atonement for the people, turning away God’s wrath (Numbers 16:46). The tendencies to personify the plague as “the destroyer” in Wisdom of Solomon 18:25 appear also in 4 Maccabees 7:11, as Aaron conquers “the angel” responsible for inflicting the plague. If Alexandrinus represents the more original reading (describing the angel as ἐμπυρισμòv, a reading inserted into Sinaiticus by the corrector), we could conclude that the author was deliberately shaping Aaron’s story even more fully to conform to Eleazar’s ordeal, facing the fires (6:24–26) ..."
David A. DeSilva, 4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Sinaiticus, SEPT (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 153.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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