Aaron Disqualified Then Consecrated Anyway

Three words. That is what separates the Hebrew Bible's account of Aaron's consecration from the Targum Jonathan's version of the same event. The Torah says God told Moses to "bring near Aaron" for the priestly ceremony (Leviticus 8:2). The Targum Jonathan, the ancient Aramaic translation compiled in the Land of Israel between the 1st and 7th centuries CE, inserts the reason: Aaron was "afar off on account of the work of the calf."

He had built the Golden Calf. He knew it. God knew it. Moses knew it. And God told Moses to close the distance anyway, to bring the disqualified man near, to consecrate the person who should have been the last person eligible for the holiest office in Israel.

How Do You Become What You Disqualified Yourself to Be?

This is the central question the Targum Jonathan is wrestling with in its expansion of Leviticus 8. The theology of the Golden Calf episode is straightforward: Israel broke the covenant at its most fundamental point, worshipping a physical image in direct violation of the second commandment (Exodus 20:4). Aaron was not a passive bystander. He fashioned the calf himself when Moses did not return from Sinai (Exodus 32:2-4).

The standard answer to how Aaron becomes High Priest despite this is that the office was ordained before the sin. God had already designated Aaron and his sons in Exodus 28-29, before the golden calf incident of Exodus 32. But the Targum is not satisfied with a merely chronological answer. It acknowledges the spiritual distance the calf created and then insists that distance was closed by divine initiative, not erased by retroactive scheduling.

God told Moses to bring Aaron near. The command to close the gap came from above, not from Aaron's own rehabilitation. The Targum's theology here is precise: human sin creates distance, but the priestly office is established by divine will, and divine will can override the distance that sin creates.

The Twenty-Third of Adar

The Targum supplies a date the Hebrew Bible does not: the consecration ceremony began on the twenty-third of Adar. For seven days, Moses erected and then dismantled the Tabernacle daily while Aaron and his sons underwent their consecration. During this week, Moses himself served at the altar. The Targum specifies that Moses "took it not down, neither ministered any longer" only after the full consecration was complete. For seven days, Moses was the acting High Priest, and then he handed the office to his brother.

The blood ritual during this week was anatomically specific. Blood from the sin-offering bull was placed on the "middle cartilage" of Aaron's right ear, the "middle joint" of his right thumb, the "middle joint" of his right big toe. Not the tip, not the whole appendage. The middle point of each, the precise center of the organ associated with hearing, handling, and walking. The consecration was a recalibration of Aaron's entire sensory and physical apparatus.

Purifying the Altar From Coercion

When Moses purified the altar during the consecration week, the Targum Jonathan specifies what he was purifying it from: "all double-mindedness, constraint, and force, from the thoughts of his heart." Anyone who had donated materials to the Tabernacle under social pressure rather than genuine willingness had contaminated the altar with that coerced intention. The purification removed the spiritual residue of every gift given without a fully free heart.

The irony in Aaron's consecration is that the man being installed had contributed the ultimate coerced act: the midrashic tradition in Midrash Rabbah presents Aaron as having built the calf under threat of violence, fearing the mob that had surrounded him after Moses's absence. His role in the golden calf was itself a kind of "constraint and force." The altar's purification from coercion created the space in which Aaron's own story of coercion could be absorbed and transcended.

What the Urim and Thummim Were For

The Targum explicitly names the Urim and Thummim when describing the breastplate placed on Aaron during consecration. These oracular devices, mentioned by name in Exodus 28:30, allowed the High Priest to receive divine answers to specific questions. The Targum was establishing from the beginning of Aaron's service that the High Priest was not merely a ritual functionary but an oracle, a channel for divine communication.

The seven-day restriction that followed, requiring Aaron and his sons to remain at the Tabernacle entrance without leaving, carried a mortal warning: "that you may not die." The priestly office was dangerous precisely because it was so close to the divine. Among the 3,205 texts in the Midrash Aggadah, this theme of proximity-as-danger runs through the entire treatment of the priesthood. The office that brought Aaron nearest to God was the same office that could destroy him if he approached incorrectly.

God brought him near anyway. That is the Targum's essential statement about divine mercy: it is not blind to the calf, but it is not bounded by the calf either.