Texts in Conversation
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 touched the righteous too, and a multitude were destroyed in the wilderness, but the wrath did not last long. 21 Then a blameless man hurried to defend them. Bringing the shield of his own ministry, prayer and atoning incense, he set himself against the wrath and brought the disaster to an end, showing that he was your servant. 22 He overcame the destroyer not by bodily strength or force of arms, but with a word he subdued the punisher, appealing to the oaths and covenants made with the ancestors. 23 When the dead had already fallen in heaps on one another, he stood between and held back the wrath, and cut off its way to the living. 24 On his long robe was the whole world, the glory of the ancestors was engraved on the four rows of stones, and your majesty was on the diadem on his head.
4 Maccabees 7:11
Pseudepigrapha
9 You, father, strengthened our loyalty to the law through your glorious endurance, and you did not abandon the holiness that you praised, but by your deeds you made your words of divine philosophy credible. 10 O aged man, more powerful than tortures; O elder, fiercer than fire; O supreme king over the passions, Eleazar! 11 For just as our father Aaron, armed with the censer, ran through the multitude of the people and conquered the fiery angel, 12 so the descendant of Aaron, Eleazar, though being consumed by the fire, remained unmoved in his reason. 13 Most amazing, indeed, though he was an old man, his body no longer tense and firm, his muscles flabby, his sinews feeble, he became young again
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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) ..."
DeSilva, David A.
4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Sinaiticus
(p. 153) Brill, 2006
* 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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