Wednesday, June 26: “The Influential Brother”

Numbers 16: 47, 48: “Then Aaron took [his censer] as Moses had spoken, and ran into the midst of the assembly, for behold, the plague had begun among the people. He took his stand between the dead and the living, so that the plague was checked.”

We tend to overlook Aaron, but this was one man with great influence, from the moment he met his younger brother Moses in the wilderness as he was on his way back to Egypt (Exodus 4: 27-30). As High Priest he actually had more authority in some areas than Moses (Ecclesiasticus 45: 6-22), as here when he stood in the midst of the plague, one man with censer and incense (a symbol of prayer), and the plague was checked. Who knows how many plagues we can check with our own censers and incense?