Eleazar

Oversimplified

• The third son of Aaron who succeeded him as the second high priest of Israel, and the father of Phinehas.
• With Joshua he divided the Promised Land among the tribes.

His Story

Eleazar was a son of Aaron by Elisheba (Exodus 6.23). When his older brothers Nadab and Abihu were struck down for offering "strange fire" before the Lord, Eleazar and his brother Ithamar carried on the priestly service (Leviticus 10; Numbers 3.4). At Aaron's death on Mount Hor, Moses stripped Aaron of the high-priestly garments and put them on Eleazar, so that the priesthood passed unbroken from father to son (Numbers 20.25-28). He stood beside Moses for the second census of Israel (Numbers 26.1-4) and was named, with Joshua, to apportion the land to the tribes (Numbers 34.17; Joshua 14.1). He was buried at Gibeah in the hill country of Ephraim (Joshua 24.33).

Aaron's Successor

Eleazar's life is quiet but structurally important: he is the hinge that keeps the priesthood continuous after Aaron. Scripture is careful to show the office handed down in an unbroken line — the same garments, the same altar — and it is through Eleazar that it reaches his son Phinehas, to whom God grants "the covenant of an everlasting priesthood" (Numbers 25.13).[^1] This concern for a priesthood received rather than seized is the same principle the Church confesses of her own ministry, and which the Fathers see fulfilled in Christ, the High Priest who does not pass away.[^2]

Sources

[^1]: The narrative of Eleazar — his sonship (Exodus 6.23), the death of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), his investiture at Aaron's death (Numbers 20.25-28), and his role in dividing the land (Numbers 34.17; Joshua 14.1; Joshua 24.33). [^2]: The everlasting priesthood promised through his son Phinehas (Numbers 25.10-13); cf. Hebrews 7 on the priesthood fulfilled in Christ.