"Alright, lets get Aaron and his
sons all priestly," says God. "I kind of went over how to
do all this back in Exodus, but I tend to repeat myself, so I'm going
to tell you all of it again. Maybe I'll change some stuff too."
"They all need to get bathed and
dressed all up in their robes and magical underwear (oh you thought
that was just for Mormons, right?). And in the breastplate, place
the Urim and Thummim."
Wait... the what? I seem to have
totally missed these things that were mentioned in Exodus 28:30.
What are they? I did a bit of digging and it's interesting enough to
pause here and talk about these.
There's a few mentions of the Urim
and Thummim in the bible, but not a lot of explanation. The first
was Exodus 28:30 where it just says to set them in the Breastpiece of
Judgment: "in the breastpiece of judgment you shall put the
Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron's heart, when he
goes in before the LORD. Thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the
people of Israel on his heart before the LORD regularly." He's
bearing the judgment of the people on his heart, so they seem to have
something to do with judging.
They are mentioned here in Leviticus
in the same context. They are set in the breastplate.
Spoiler
alert! We'll come upon these things later, in 1 Samuel 14:41 where
Saul will use them to ask God a question: "Therefore Saul said,
'O Lord God of Israel, why have you not answered your
servant this day? If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O
Lord, God of Israel, give Urim. But if this guilt is in
your people Israel, give Thummim.' And Jonathan and Saul were taken,
but the people escaped." They then cast lots between the two of
them to determine who is guilty. They are also mentioned in passing
in Numbers and Deuteronomy,
and again mentioned in
Ezra and Nehemiah, much later in the Bible.
Very interestingly, they are also used by Joseph Smith Jr. in
translating the Book of Mormon. Moroni the angel tells him about
golden plates containing the Urim and Thummim to assist in
understanding God's word. Christians, for some reason that I cannot
figure, think this is ridiculous.
Is this God's coin toss? God's
Magic 8 Ball? Divination based on a roll of the dice? I remember as
a kid pretending I could tell the future or the truth by looking at
mud splatters in a bucket or using sticks and rocks as rune stones.
This seems similar.
Back to our story.
Moses takes Aaron and his sons to the
tabernacle, along with a bull, a couple of nice looking rams, and
some unleavened bread. He washes them, dresses them up in the
clothes, and anoints them and the altar and utensils and the
tabernacle with oil. He kills the bull as a sin offering and pours
the blood all over the place and burns the fat from it, then drags
the rest out of the camp and burns it out there.
Then they kill a ram for a burnt
offering, and God is totally happy about the smell of roasting goat.
Then they kill the ram of ordination.
Moses takes some of the blood and dabs it on the priests' right ear
lobes, right thumbs, and right big toes, then throws the rest of the
blood on the side of the altar in a big splashy mess. He gives Aaron
the fatty parts, the right thigh, and some unleavened bread. Aaron
waves it around for a bit. Moses takes it back and burns it, and
again, God is thrilled by the smell of burning fat and flesh.
Moses anoints the priests' garments
with more oil and tells them to boil the rest of the flesh by the
door of the tent and to eat it and the leftover unleavened bread,
then burn all the leftovers. "Don't leave the tent for seven
days," he tells them. "You have to stay right here at the
entrance of the tent so you don't die!"
"Oh that makes perfect sense,"
says Aaron.
On the eighth day, Moses tells Aaron
the do another sin offering, another burnt offering, and tells him to
tell the people to burn up a TON of goats and calves and lambs and
oxen and rams and grain and oil.
Aaron does his sin offering and burnt
offering without a hitch. He does the sin offering for the people,
the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, and all goes swimmingly.
He blesses the people and the fire of God comes down from heaven and
consumes the offerings, to much ooo-ing and ahh-ing of the crowd.
Aaron is absolutely rocking this priest
gig.
Just when everything is going so well,
two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, decide that they can do better.
They put some incense in a censer and wave it around.
ZAP!!!!! God strikes them dead with
fire from the sky.
Moses calls for a clean up crew and
they carry Nadab and Abihu out of the camp.
"Carry on," says Moses.
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