Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
The greeting of the two brothers was very cordial. Envy and jealousy
bad no place between them. Aaron was rejoiced that God had chosen his
younger brother to be the redeemer of Israel, and Moses was rejoiced
that his older brother had been divinely appointed the high priest in
Israel. God knew their hearts, for at the time when He charged him with
the Egyptian mission, Moses had said, "All these years Aaron has been
active as a prophet in Israel, and should I now encroach upon his
province and cause him vexation?" But God reassured him, saying,
"Moses, thy brother Aaron will surely not be vexed, he will rather
rejoice at thy mission, yea, he will come forth and meet thee."
Aaron showed his joy freely at seeing his brother once more, after
their separation of many years. As for his joy in the distinction
accorded to Moses, it was too great to be expressed in all its depth
and extent. For his kind, generous spirit, he received a reward from
God, in that he was permitted to bear the Urim and Thummim upon his
heart, "for," God said, "the heart that rejoiced at the exalting of a
brother shall wear the Urim and Thummim."[150]
Aaron ran to meet his brother, and embraced him, and asked where he had
spent all the years of their separation. When he was told in Midian, he
continued to question him, saying, "Who are these that are travelling
with thee?"
Moses: "My wife and my sons."
Aaron: "Whither goest thou with them?"
Moses: "To Egypt."
Aaron: "What! Great enough is our sorrow through those who have been in
Egypt from the beginning, and thou takest more to the land?"
Moses recognized that Aaron was right, and he sent his wife and his
sons back to his father-in-law Jethro.[151]
He was no less magnanimous than Aaron. If the elder brother felt no
envy on account of the younger brother's dignity, the younger brother
did not withhold from the other the teachings and revelations he had
received. Immediately after meeting with Aaron, Moses told him all that
God had taught him, even the awful secret of the Ineffable Name
communicated to him on Mount Horeb.[152]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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