1“You shall make an altar to burn incense on. You shall make it of acacia wood. 2Its length shall be a cubit, and its width a cubit. It shall be square, and its height shall be two cubits. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. 3You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top, its sides around it, and its horns; and you shall make a gold molding around it. 4You shall make two golden rings for it under its molding; on its two ribs, on its two sides you shall make them; and they shall be for places for poles with which to bear it. 5You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 6You shall put it before the veil that is by the ark of the covenant, before the mercy seat that is over the covenant, where I will meet with you. 7Aaron shall burn incense of sweet spices on it every morning. When he tends the lamps, he shall burn it. 8When Aaron lights the lamps at evening, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before Yahweh throughout your generations. 9You shall offer no strange incense on it, nor burnt offering, nor meal offering; and you shall pour no drink offering on it. 10Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once in the year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once in the year he shall make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to Yahweh.”
11Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 12“When you take a census of the children of Israel, according to those who are counted among them, then each man shall give a ransom for his soul to Yahweh when you count them, that there be no plague among them when you count them. 13They shall give this, everyone who passes over to those who are counted, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs); half a shekel for an offering to Yahweh. 14Everyone who passes over to those who are counted, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering to Yahweh. 15The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when they give the offering of Yahweh, to make atonement for your souls. 16You shall take the atonement money from the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the Tent of Meeting; that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before Yahweh, to make atonement for your souls.”
17Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 18“You shall also make a basin of bronze, and its base of bronze, in which to wash. You shall put it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it. 19Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in it. 20When they go into the Tent of Meeting, they shall wash with water, that they not die; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to Yahweh. 21So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they not die. This shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his descendants throughout their generations.”
22Moreover Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 23“Also take fine spices: of liquid myrrh, five hundred shekels; and of fragrant cinnamon half as much, even two hundred and fifty; and of fragrant cane, two hundred and fifty; 24and of cassia five hundred, according to the shekel of the sanctuary; and a hin of olive oil. 25You shall make it into a holy anointing oil, a perfume compounded after the art of the perfumer: it shall be a holy anointing oil. 26You shall use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the covenant, 27the table and all its articles, the lamp stand and its accessories, the altar of incense, 28the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin with its base. 29You shall sanctify them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them shall be holy. 30You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and sanctify them, that they may minister to me in the priest’s office. 31You shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘This shall be a holy anointing oil to me throughout your generations. 32It shall not be poured on man’s flesh, and do not make any like it, according to its composition. It is holy. It shall be holy to you. 33Whoever compounds any like it, or whoever puts any of it on a stranger, he shall be cut off from his people.’”
34Yahweh said to Moses, “Take to yourself sweet spices, gum resin, onycha, and galbanum: sweet spices with pure frankincense. There shall be an equal weight of each. 35You shall make incense of it, a perfume after the art of the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy. 36You shall beat some of it very small, and put some of it before the covenant in the Tent of Meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be to you most holy. 37You shall not make this incense, according to its composition, for yourselves: it shall be to you holy for Yahweh. 38Whoever shall make any like that, to smell of it, he shall be cut off from his people.”
Aaron was the son of Amram and Jochebed, the brother of Moses and Miriam, and the first priest of Israel. God appointed Aaron to be Moses' spokesman in his audiences with the unnamed Pharaoh of Exodus. As a symbol of his office, Aaron received a magical rod. He turned the rod into a snake - the first in a series of signs, by which he and Moses hoped to persuade Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. Aaron also used the rod to call down three of the plagues that followed this first sign (polluting the Nile, frogs and gnats). God also caused the rod to blossom and bear ripe almonds, as a sign that Aaron's descendants would inherit the priesthood.
God summoned Aaron to be present when Moses received the Ten Commandments. But Aaron did not stay on Sinai. Instead he agreed to oversee the casting of an idol (a golden calf) for the Israelites who had rebelled against the authority of the absent Moses.
Aaron was generally a supporter of Moses, but took him to task for his marrying a Cushite wife. For this God rebuked Aaron (and Miriam). His role as priest was critical when he made atonement for the Israelites and stayed the plague that had followed the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram. Exodus and Leviticus give a detailed account of the vestments and duties of Aaron and of his sons.
Aaron's elder sons, Nadab and Abihu, died early but the younger pair, Eleazar and Ithamar, succeeded him in the priesthood. When Aaron was a hundred and twenty three, God instructed him to go up onto Mt. Hor, where he died. Aaron figures prominently in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers, and is named in other books of both Old and New Testaments.