Introduction
The Hebrew Bible presents conflicting political viewpoints between its authors. The priestly viewpoint seeks to distance itself (and its readers) from the mythic legacy of Moses as the redeemer of the nation of Israel and replace it with a system of abject reverence for, and obeisance to, the Aaronic priesthood. We’ll examine a few examples of how this conflict is played out in the text.
Some Background
Moses, we’re told, escaped from Pharaoh’s Egypt to take up residence in “Midian” (an undefined territory encompassing parts of Edom – southern Jordan today — and northern Sinai, and perhaps the southern Negev desert, and was also associated with the related Kenites — Num 24:21-22). Midian, the “nation”, descended from the eponymous son of Abraham and Keturah (Ge 25:2). There Moses encounters the family of Reuel (Jethro), a priest of Midian, and marries his daughter Zipporah, so marrying into the Midianite priestly clan (Ex 2:21-22). Zipporah then gives birth to a son, Gershom (more later).
Moses is also described as having a “Cushite wife” (Nu 12:1-14), as reported by the E source claiming the disciplining of Aaron and Miriam for using this wife as an excuse to complain about Moses’ special treatment by YHWH[i]. There is some speculation that this is not another wife but one-in-the-same Zipporah – that “Cush” or “Cushan” (Hab 3:7) was synonymous with Midian and the Kenites. Either way, both identities are the subject of priestly push-back.
What’s the Complaint?
Before examining data that seems to show a kind of editorial turf war between various authors of the Pentateuch, we should first identify the source of the friction between them. According to the Documentary Theory, there were several groups of authors of the Pentateuch the principal of which are designated J, E, P, and D (with a few “redactor” and other sources). The editorial turf war we’re interested in was between the P (priestly) source and both the E (Elohist) and D (Deuteronomist) sources, as the latter represented loyal Moses acolytes, while the P source seemed to chafe at Moses’ preeminent role in the Exodus narratives of his fellow authors that acted to minimize the role and importance of their ancestor, Aaron.
As Richard Elliot Friedman (hereafter, “Friedman”) points out in several of his works[ii],[iii], there is an established legend emanating from some fairly obscure passages in the Hebrew Bible that Moses was himself a priest whose male descendants were, in turn, priests. This line is known as “Mushite”, i.e. descending from Moses. We’ll examine where that legend comes from. This priestly line is thought by scholars to have been in charge of the Tabernacle at Shiloh after Israel had entered Canaan and before the split of the Levites into Aaronite priests and non-Aaronites.
As such, they had more of an affinity for the northern tribes – Israel. Of the various sources of the Pentateuch, it was the E source that demonstrated a particular northern affinity, while the P source concentrated on the southern Aaronic clan of priests and their exclusivity as priests.
These two sources represented rival factions of the Levitical priesthood. One represented the line of Aaron, the other Moses. One represented and wrote about the south – Judah, Jerusalem, Hebron, while the other the north (“Israel”) – Shiloh, Anathoth, Beth-El, Mt. Ebal, Shechem, Dan.
We should note here that the D source[iv] is also thought to have been a member of the northern priestly line, sometimes identified as the “Shiloh” or “Anathoth” priests, as Anathoth was a Levitical city and the home of Abiathar, the northern priest dismissed from Solomon’s Temple in favor of the Aaronic Zadok. I’ve written a bit about this priestly dichotomy in “Who Wrote the Hebrew Bible?”
The Pedigree of Midian — YHWH’s “Home Turf”?
There is an ancient legend that identifies YHWH, if not “residing” with, then at least being known by the ancient inhabitants of the southern deserts of Edom and Canaan, and northern Sinai. I’ve written a bit about the archaeological case for this legend in “Where Did YHWH Come From?”. However, that piece left out one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for this southern desert knowledge of YHWH and that is the so-called “Soleb inscription”.
This inscription is dated to the late Bronze Age (14th century BC), coincident with or preceding the reported Exodus from Egypt. The inscription, listing various enemies of Egypt that it claims were defeated, reads:
“The lands of the Shasu of YWH”.
where the term “YWH” is a form of spelling of the name of Israel’s God, YHWH, and “Shasu” is understood to refer to a nomadic people that likely raised and herded cattle, and this inscription’s position on its cylinder seems to indicate that the location of these people was in the area of Canaan[v].
This inscription is hugely significant because it predates the previously oldest reference to “Israel” in the Merneptah Stele by some 200 years.
Then, of course, we have the entire Exodus narrative in which the “Mountain of God” is made known to Moses (and presumably had been previously known to Midian’s priest, Ruele, Moses’ father-in-law). And it is there that God informs Moses that His name is YHWH (Ex 3:14-15). As pointed out in “Where Did YHWH Come From?”, YHWH’s encounter with Moses is shepherding distance from Midian and at Horeb/Sinai, the mountain of the Exodus, located somewhere in northern Sinai or possibly southern Edom.
As for other archaeological data referring to YHWH in the southern deserts, we have several southern Negev shrines with inscriptions referring to Him (e.g. “YHWH of Teman”), but these are quite late – 9th/8th century BC.
So, we have a fairly substantial collection of evidence that locates YHWH being known by the inhabitants of the southern deserts of the Levant as early as the Late Bronze Age. This fact, in concert with Moses’ history with the priestly clan of Reuel adjacent to the “Mountain of God” in that region, and Moses’ interaction with YHWH at that mountain, all combined to create Moses’ legend and preeminent role in Israel’s history with their God. As such, he and those devoted to his story, and possibly his descendants, presented a serious threat to other groups in Israel/Judah seeking to acquire authoritative status and control of all things related to YHWH and His worship – the priests.
Moses as Priest
We typically don’t identify Moses as a “priest” in the traditional, temple sacrificial sense. However, the text relates him engaging in “priestly” activities that can’t be easily dismissed. Let’s look at a few.
Moses on “Holy Ground”
Perhaps the first and most dramatic episode that places Moses in the place later reserved for priests is his encounter at the burning bush. There God instructs him to remove his sandals because the ground he is standing on is “holy” ground (Ex 3:5). In the later priestly writings we read that only priests could come into contact with holy objects (“sancta”).
Moses in God’s Presence
On countless occasions, we’re told of encounters between YHWH and Moses – at the bush, in Egypt in deploying the plagues, in the desert providing manna and water, in the Tent of Meeting, on the mountain. It is a platitude that only the High Priest of the Tabernacle/Temple could enter the Holy of Holies to encounter the presence of God. And then only once a year. So, the text only underscores the historically unique position vis-à-vis YHWH that Moses experienced.
Moses Sanctifies the Altar with Blood
In Ex 24:6-8, Moses sanctifies the altar with blood; then the people, a thoroughly priestly act.
Moses and the Priestly Urim and Thummim
In Dt 33:8-10 (source “DTR1”), Moses designates the Urim and Thummim “to your godly man” of the tribe of Levi (for their righteousness) – actions of a high priest, while not mentioning Aaron. By contrast, in Ex 28:30, P has God telling Moses to place these objects in a breastplate “close to Aaron’s heart”.
Moses Instructs Aaron
In Num 16:46-48, Moses gives Aaron instruction in the priestly matter of establishing atonement for the people’s sin, so stemming the plague afflicting them at Sinai. Beyond one-upmanship, this is simply a matter of documenting the authority that then existed between the two men (assuming Aaron was a real figure).
Based on these texts, we’re probably justified in viewing Moses as a priest of YHWH — one who mediated between God and His people; at least as seen by other “wanna-be” priests who followed him, even if not the people he directly led. While Israel’s perception should have concluded that Moses was YHWH’s first (and perhaps only) priest, his role as leader, judge, and prophet may have dominated their senses so that his priestly role became obscured. Such was not the case with subsequent generations of priests, who understood the essence of the relationship between themselves and their service to YHWH. “It takes one to know one.”
The Aaronite’s Opposition to Moses
First, I should perhaps explain what I’m seeing in the Torah that qualifies as priestly “opposition” to Moses. For me, it boils down to three things; 1) texts in the P corpus that feature Aaron instead of, or simply inserted alongside, Moses while the other sources follow a narrative of Moses as the unquestioned leader and actor on behalf of Israel, 2) texts that have been modified to eliminate attention to Moses’ priestly role and descendants, and 3) the absence of non-P texts in which Moses ever extols Aaron as Israel’s High Priest or otherwise as one to be venerated. We’ll look briefly at these first two cases.
Moses’ Preeminence Diminished By Aaron’s Presence
One of the easiest areas to see the P source infringe on what in the E source was an exclusively Moses story is in the plague narratives in Exodus. Let’s look at Exodus 7 as an example[vi].
The chapter begins with the P source’s introduction where Moses and Aaron are instructed by YHWH to have Moses instruct Aaron to throw his staff down which would then turn into a “serpent”, which Aaron does. Pharaoh is unmoved by Aaron’s serpent swallowing his magicians’ serpents. (Ex 7:1-13)
Then E jumps in (Ex 7:14-18) and has YHWH instruct Moses (alone) to use his staff to strike the Nile and turn it to blood.
However, before the deed can be done, the P source interjects Aaron once again into the narrative. As before we have YHWH telling Moses (v19) to tell Aaron to “Take your staff and reach your hand over Egypt’s waters, over their rivers, over their canals, and over their pools, and over every concentration of their waters.”
So not only does the P source write Moses out of the action of turning the Nile to blood and Aaron in, but he expands the scope of the disaster to include all the water in Egypt, not just the Nile. Curiously, whoever edited this chapter to make an integrated whole, switches authors in mid-verse; Exodus 7:20:
20 “P” – Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded. “E” – In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood.
Notice that the E source’s pronoun “he” in v20:b he intended to refer to Moses. With the P source’s insertion of v19, however, the reader reads that “he” as referring to Aaron, in that he was the one declared in v19 to perform the striking action. It is interesting that the P source does not follow up with his narration of “all” the waters of Egypt being turned to blood but lets the E source’s story of the Nile (only) turned to blood stand.
Every plague narrative is edited in a similar fashion and to the same effect – to keep Aaron front and center in the narrative’s action (except for the Reed Sea crossing, where the P source allows Moses to part and later close the waters, while Aaron is inexplicably absent).
Moses as the Father of a Priestly Line Expunged
We reviewed a few texts (above) that identified Moses not as a priest, but as acting as if he was. Now, if you are one of those seeking hegemony over the sacrifices of the Jerusalem Temple, you want to maintain control of that enterprise for yourself. You surely don’t want the story getting out that the most significant Prophet in the history of Israel was himself a priest of YHWH as were his descendants, and they’re different from you. That would fatally threaten your enterprise and political standing.
So, what is our evidence for this assertion?
First, let’s look at the P source narrative in Numbers 31 that has YHWH instructing Moses to “avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites.” Later the source states:
7 They warred against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every male.
But the P source wasn’t yet satisfied with this story. Remember, Moses married the Midianite Zipporah. So later the P source adds this:
13 Moses and Eleazar[vii] the priest and all the chiefs of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. 14 And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. 15 Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? 16 Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD. 17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.
Now as a narrative, this is quite twisted. Maybe not “sick”, as in psychopathic, but perhaps not far off. For the P source, he wasn’t satisfied with a narrative that had YHWH telling Moses to kill the entire population of his adopted people. No. He had to also turn the screws so that Moses, by his own voice, insisted that all Midianite women taken from battle who had “known a man” be murdered, and, of course, this included his wife. As Friedman quips[iii], “Honey, I’ve got some good news and some bad news – mostly bad news.”
So, this narrative is attempting to expunge three elements of the non-P source descriptions of Moses’ history: 1) his association with a people that knew YHWH before there was an Israel[xi], let alone its priesthood (Kohanim), 2) Moses’ remaining physical tie to those people in his wife, and 3) any hint that in any way Moses had inherited from his father-in-law Reuel and through his dealings with YWHW at the mountain any semblance of priestly authority.
The next literary attack against Moses we find in Judges 18. Here we find an obscure reference that is sometimes mishandled by our English translations. Verse 30 of the chapter in the KJV reads:
30 And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.
However, in the ESV (and other modern translations) we get a different translation:
30 And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.
It turns out that in the Masoretic text, the text of the name rendered Manasseh in the KJV has embedded within it a raised (like a superscript) ‘nun’ letter following the leading ‘mem’ (מְנַשֶּׁה). Following this raised nun are the two letters shin and heh. Modern translators are convinced that the original word was mem-shin-heh, which is the spelling for our English Moses (Moshe). But what happened was that later editors didn’t want Moses named here because the verse identifies Moses’ grandson, Jonathon (son of Moses’ son Gershom – Ex 2:22), as a priest.
Instead, a latter editor, recognizing the magnitude of the assertion of a Mushite line of priests, inserted the superscript nun to result in Manasseh, not Moses, which, perhaps not coincidentally, is the name of the most vile, apostate king in Judah’s history. (Whatever else you may think of these warring sources of the Hebrew Bible, they were ruthless.)
Summary
Reviewing this (representative) collection of textual evidence, it seems that the P source had two primary issues with the Moses narratives of his source colleagues, plus some other points of dispute.
The first major issue was that Moses wasn’t Aaron, their forefather and champion. Aaron is identified in the text as “Aaron, your brother Levite” (Ex 4:14, according to Friedman ii not: “Aaron, your brother the Levite”), though an assumed P source provides his case in Ex 6:14-27 that the two were siblings. Since P is the only source of this information, and Aaron’s ancestry is not mentioned by other sources (the D source [“DTR1”] mentions the name Aaron in exactly one verse of Deuteronomy), we should be skeptical.
Moses was the towering hero of the Exodus narrative, intuitively venerated by all later generations of both Israelites and Judahites. If he was not only the father of the nation but effectively its first priest, then the Aaronite priests would have a difficult time claiming that, because of their being descendants of Aaron, another Levite, they should inherit exclusive control of the Temple including its office of High Priest. Now if it could be shown in the text that this same Moses had a son (Gershom) who himself had sons at least one of which was also a priest (Jonathon), then the floodgates of incredibility would be opened against the Aaronites.
Early generations knew of the tradition of Mushite priests serving at Shiloh and living in Levitical Anathoth (about 16.5 miles south of Shiloh, near the Benjamin-Judah border). So, at some point in their history, the P sources must have been compelled to tell the stories their way, and in so doing asserting the pedigree of not only familial ties with Moses but a God-ordained mandate. Later redactors then had to compile the various narrative versions into an integrated composite.
The second major issue the P sources had with their source colleagues’ (J, E, D) Torah narratives is the linkage between Moses, the Midianite priestly class, and the Midianites themselves. Why? Well, the priestly association was a showstopper, as discussed above. But the Midianites themselves were supposedly at some point aligned with the Moabites against Israel (the whole Balaam story), as well as themselves complicit in luring away Israelite men to worship their reported god, Baal-Peor, and, crucially, intermarry[viii] as related in Numbers 25. (The problem here that seems to be being alleged is that Israel was not to mix with outsiders who did not worship YHWH; thus, the story of the death of the Midianite woman Cozbi at the hands of Phineas, reported to be a grandson of Aaron’s, in Numbers 25).
Interestingly, as related in the Moses Scroll[xii], the guilty in the Num 25 Midianite women episode was Israel — not the Midianites. Its version of the story reads as follows:
And the daughters of Moab went forth at that time, and the women of Midian to meet you, and they called to you to eat from their sacrifices, and you drank from their libations, and you bowed to their gods, and you whored with the Midianite women, and you were joined to Baal-peor in that day.
And the anger of Elohim burned upon you, and He plagued a great plague against you at that time.
And I sent men from you to battle the Midianites, and you smote them with the edge of the sword, and you captured from them very many captives, and the plague was restrained.
But inexplicably, even here we see Moses claiming to have given the order to attack the Midianites, apparently as a strategy to relieve the effects of the plague that YHWH had inflicted on Israel due to their apostacy with them. (To me, in the context of the scroll, this is completely non-sequitur, and is the weakest part of the Moses Scroll’s claim of authenticity. It looks for all the world as if a late editor of the anti-Moses camp got a hold of this fragment.)
Out of nowhere (literally — in the narrative flow of Numbers) we encounter the exclusively P narrative in Numbers 31 in which YHWH commands Moses to wipe out (not just attack) the Midianites (who up to this point have played at best a secondary role to the Moabites in the Numbers narrative.)
Clearly, through this narrative, as well as the narrative of Moses’ marriage to Zipporah the Midianite, the P source wants to destroy any possible interpretation that the Midianites were, now along with Moses, YHWH worshippers, possibly at their Mountain of God. Here they are characterized as pagans, and through their mixing with Israel, upsetting enough to YHWH that He orders Moses – effectively one of them – to destroy them. As a final kicker, the P source (Num 31) allows his reader to draw his own conclusion as to whether or not Moses murdered his wife in obedience to this YHWH.
The P source had other issues with the non-P sources; the location of the unique place of sacrificial worship where God would “put His name” – Jerusalem vs Mt Ebal; the status of non-Aaronic Levites as second class vs all Levites as “priestly Levites” – Dt 18:1-8; the disposition of sacrifices and offerings at the Temple as going primarily to the priests vs the offerors (vs the other way around), etc.
The E source, too, was a priest (as is thought was the D source) and so on occasion is found in compatibility with some of the P material. However, the E source is the author of the molten calf incident at Mt. Sinai in which Aaron is the facilitator[ix] (Ex 32:21-24). So, we see that the animus cuts both ways. The D source simply ignores the Aaron narratives, while the E source disputes the P source’s Egypt and Sinai narratives.
Take Aways
Given the quite stark separation between these sources’ worldviews[x], it seems unbelievable to me that somehow God saw to their amalgamation, redaction, and final editing to result in something very close to what our English translations have today as the Hebrew Bible. To me, it is nothing short of miraculous.
[i] Shiki-y-Michaels, Shiela, “Zipporah, Cosbi and Yael: Blessed of Women in Tents Biblical Priestesses, Tents & the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis”, SBL Annual Meeting, 24 November, 2013
[ii] Friedman, Richard Elliot, “Who wrote the Bible?”, Simon and Schuster, 2019.
[iii] Friedman, Richard Elliot, Moses and His Cushite Wife (video – Episode 12 of Return to Torah), 2020
[iv] Possibly the prophet Jeremiah, or his scribe Baruch, according to Friedman.
[v] Tebes, Juan Manuel, “The Archaeology of Cult of Ancient Israel’s Southern Neighbors and the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis”, National Research Council Argentina, 2021
[vi] Friedman, Richard Elliot, “The Bible With Sources Revealed”, Harper One, 2003
[vii] Both Moses and Aaron are reported to have sons named Eleazor. There is a question yet in scholarship whether these are two different people of the same name, or whether one source was trying to claim this priest as his champion’s son in opposition to the other.
[viii] Pettit, David P., “Expiating Apostasy: Baal Peor, Moses, and Intermarriage With a Midianite Woman”, Journal For the Study of the Old Testament, Vol 41.4, (2018), 457-468
[ix] Purportedly, this story is in response both to the Aaronite hegemony over the Jerusalem Temple but also to the northern King Jeroboam’s establishment of calf idols at Beth-El and Dan (1 Ki 12:32)
[x] I try to explore in more detail the nature of the various source’s worldviews in “Searching for the Bible’s Sources”
[xi] Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit, and Israel: Continuity & Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), p. 283. He also remarks, “… Though in the Egyptian texts Yhw is used as a toponym, a relationship with the deity by the same name is a reasonable assumption. Whether the god took his name from the region or vice versa remains uncertain.”
