John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
Aaron's tannin תנין symbolizes a living, organic, priesthood, the levi-tical priesthood; the priesthood come from the tribe of Levi: the Levi-i-tan לויתן. His rod is Leviathan such that it swallows the priestly rods of Pharaoh's priests כשפ since the Leviathan is the largest of the living serpents.
But Moses' rod is different in that, as we learn latter in the narrative, it is a wooden rod, like Aaron's, but it represents a divine priesthood, such that it is eventually given a foreskene of brass; it's a dry branch whose outer skene is made up of heavenly priests, the seraphim (the burning angels): a burning bush if you will.
When Moses protests to God on Horeb that Israel won't believe God has appeared to him (Exodus 3) God turns Moses' rod into a portable burning bush: a wooden rod whose foliage is made up of burning heavenly priests, seraphim. Moses' rod, latter revealed as "Nehushtan" (heavenly-priest, brass-serpent) is a portable Mount Sinai that follows the tribes on their path to the Holy Land. Moses brings the burning bush with him in his right hand as Nehush-tan.
The thread on Aaron's rod noted a distinction, as stated above, between Aaron's organic rod, representing not a divine priesthood, but merely the highest human priesthood, versus Moses' rod, that, since it's related to "brass," i.e., metal, non-organic material, represents a heavenly order of sanctity and power much higher than the sanctity and power of Aaron's rod. Since the distinction between Aaron's rod and Moses' rods leads directly toward the order of Malki-Tsaddik, it's interesting that Rabbi Samson Hirsch notes a similar distinction between Mechizedek as the "priest of God the most high," versus what will become the priests of Judaism, whom, Rabbi Hirsch says worship not merely the highest of the heathen gods, per Melchizedek, but a God who is of another order altogether than the heathen gods of Abraham's day.
Rabbi Hirsch claims even in his righteousness, Melchizedek only recognized Abraham's God as the highest of the gods of the heathen and not as a God from an order unrecognized by any man until Abraham's day.
These two concepts ----צדק and שלום ---- comprise the essence of Judaism's whole message to humanity. But in Malki Tzedek's time, all this was fulfilled only in its own special sphere. The one and only God of Judaism was considered merely the highest of the [heathen] gods . . ..
The Hirsch Chumash, Bereshis 14:18.
The Hirsch Chumash, Bereshis 14:18.
John