Eleazar

The name Eleazar ("God has helped") attaches to several distinct men across UPDV scripture: the third son of Aaron, who succeeds his father in the high priesthood; a Levite of Kiriath-jearim who guards the ark for twenty years under Eli's failing house; one of David's three mighty men; a Merarite Levite who dies leaving only daughters; a son of Phinehas in the Ezra return; an Israelite of the sons of Parosh in the foreign-wife list; a name in the wall-dedication choir; an ancestor in Joseph's genealogy; the priestly grandfather of Ben Sira; the fourth Maccabean brother surnamed Abaron; the man crushed under the elephant at Beth-zechariah; and the father of an envoy Judas sends to Rome.

Aaron's Son and the Priestly Succession

Eleazar is born to Aaron and Elisheba, the third of four sons (Ex 6:23; Nu 3:2). He marries one of the daughters of Putiel, who bears him Phinehas (Ex 6:25). When Nadab and Abihu die offering strange fire, Eleazar and Ithamar — the two sons left — are forbidden to mourn publicly and are reproved by Moses for burning, rather than eating, the sin-offering goat (Le 10:6, 10:12, 10:16). They serve in the priest's office in the presence of their father (Nu 3:4).

In the wilderness Eleazar is set apart from his brother. He is "prince of the princes of the Levites," with oversight of those who keep the charge of the sanctuary (Nu 3:32), and his personal charge is the oil for the light, the sweet incense, the continual meal-offering, the anointing oil, and "all the tabernacle, and... all that is in it, the sanctuary, and its furniture" (Nu 4:16). After Korah's revolt it is Eleazar — not Aaron — whom Moses commands to take up the rebels' censers from the burning and beat them into a covering for the altar, a perpetual sign that no stranger is to draw near (Nu 16:37-40). The red heifer is given to him; he leads it outside the camp, watches it slain before his face, and sprinkles its blood seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting (Nu 19:3-4).

The succession itself is enacted on Mount Hor. Yahweh tells Moses, "Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up to mount Hor; and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son" (Nu 20:25-26). Moses does so: "And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there on the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount" (Nu 20:28). The Deuteronomic itinerary records the same transition tersely: "Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son served in the priest's office in his stead" (De 10:6).

From that point Eleazar stands beside Moses as the second figure of authority. He is named alongside Moses for the second wilderness census (Nu 26:1, 26:3, 26:63) and beside Joshua for the commissioning at the door of the tent: "set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight... And he will stand before Eleazar the priest, who will inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before Yahweh" (Nu 27:19, 27:21). Joshua is to receive Yahweh's word through Eleazar's oracle. In the war against Midian, Eleazar — not Moses — speaks the statute of purification to the returning soldiers (Nu 31:21), receives the heave-offering from the spoils (Nu 31:29, 31:41), and takes the gold of the captains "into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the sons of Israel before Yahweh" (Nu 31:54). Reuben and Gad bring their request for trans-Jordanian settlement to him as well as to Moses (Nu 32:2), and Moses gives final charge over their conditional inheritance to Eleazar, Joshua, and the heads of the fathers' houses (Nu 32:28). Eleazar and Joshua are the two named men appointed to divide the land (Nu 34:17).

The Conquest and the Inheritance

In Joshua, Eleazar's name leads every formal allocation: "the inheritances which the sons of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the tribes of the sons of Israel, distributed to them" (Jos 14:1). The daughters of Zelophehad come "before Eleazar the priest, and before Joshua the son of Nun, and before the princes," and are granted inheritance among their brothers' brothers per the [Speech] of Yahweh (Jos 17:4). The Shiloh distribution is carried out "before Yahweh, at the door of the tent of meeting" by the same triad (Jos 19:51), and the Levitical cities are likewise assigned by Eleazar, Joshua, and the fathers' heads (Jos 21:1). When the trans-Jordan tribes build their altar by the Jordan and the western tribes prepare for war, it is Phinehas son of Eleazar whom they send east to investigate; Phinehas's verdict averts the conflict (Jos 22:13, 22:31, 22:32). Eleazar himself dies at the close of the book, "and they buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the hill-country of Ephraim" (Jos 24:33).

Phinehas son of Eleazar carries the line forward into Judges, standing before the ark at Bethel during the Benjamite war (Jdg 20:28), and later figures in priestly genealogies in Chronicles (1Ch 6:4, 6:50; 9:20) and at the head of Ezra's pedigree (Ezr 7:5).

The Twenty-Four Courses

Chronicles preserves Eleazar's priestly line as one half of the post-exilic priestly organization. "The sons of Aaron: Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died before their father, and had no sons: therefore Eleazar and Ithamar executed the priest's office" (1Ch 24:1-2). David, with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, divides the priests by lot — sixteen heads of fathers' houses for Eleazar, eight for Ithamar — "for there were princes of the sanctuary, and princes of God, both of the sons of Eleazar, and of the sons of Ithamar" (1Ch 24:3-5). The footnote at 1Ch 24:6 follows HOTTP and CTAT in noting that Ithamar's eight heads each receive two chosen ones, balancing the lot. The Zadokite line stems from this Eleazar branch.

Eleazar of Kiriath-jearim

When the ark returns from Philistine territory after the calamity at Beth-shemesh, the men of Kiriath-jearim "fetched up the ark of Yahweh, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of Yahweh" (1Sa 7:1). The ark remains there twenty years, and "all the house of Israel lamented after Yahweh" (1Sa 7:2). This Eleazar is not a priest by Aaronic descent; he is a sanctified custodian, drawn into a quasi-Levitical role by the emergency of the ark's wandering.

Eleazar Son of Dodo, the Ahohite

Among David's heroes Eleazar appears in the catalogue of the Three. "After him was Eleazar the son of Dodai the son of an Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines who were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel had gone away. He arose, and struck the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand stuck to the sword; and Yahweh wrought a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to take spoil" (2Sa 23:9-10). The Chronicler's parallel calls him Eleazar son of Dodo the Ahohite (1Ch 11:12). The narrative attributes the rout to Yahweh and reduces the surviving Israelites to scavengers; Eleazar's hand is the only one that does not flag.

A Merarite Levite

A separate Eleazar appears in the Levitical genealogy. "The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli: Eleazar and Kish. And Eleazar died, and had no sons, but daughters only: and their brothers the sons of Kish took them [as wives]" (1Ch 23:21-22). The summary at 1Ch 24:28 repeats the note: "Of Mahli: Eleazar, who had no sons." The line ends in his daughters and is preserved only by intermarriage with the Kishites.

The Restoration Eleazars

Three more men carry the name across Ezra-Nehemiah. Ezra travels with "Eleazar the son of Phinehas" — distinct from the Aaronic pair, as the patronyms are reversed in time — and on the fourth day of the return the temple silver, gold, and vessels are weighed into the hand of Meremoth son of Uriah, with Eleazar son of Phinehas and the Levites Jozabad and Noadiah (Ezr 8:33). A different Eleazar, "of the sons of Parosh," appears in the foreign-wife list (Ezr 10:25), one of the laymen who had married outside Israel and is required to put away his wife. At the dedication of the wall under Nehemiah, "Maaseiah, and Shemaiah, and Eleazar, and Uzzi, and Jehohanan, and Malchijah, and Elam, and Ezer" form half the trumpet procession, "and the singers sang loud, with Jezrahiah their overseer" (Ne 12:42).

Eleazar in Joseph's Genealogy

Matthew's genealogy of Joseph passes through an Eleazar in the late post-exilic generations: "Eliud begot Eleazar; and Eleazar begot Matthan; and Matthan begot Jacob" (Mt 1:15). Nothing else is recorded of him; the name persists in the Davidic line only as a link in the descent toward Joseph the husband of Mary.

Ben Sira's Grandfather

Sirach's colophon names a Hellenistic-period Eleazar: "Wise instruction and apt proverbs of Simeon, the son of Jeshua, the son of Eleazar, the son of Sira" (Sir 50:27); the closing benediction repeats the line: "the son of Jeshua, the son of Eleazar, the son of Sira" (Sir 51:30). This Eleazar is Ben Sira's grandfather; he gives his grandson the patronymic by which the wisdom book is known. Earlier in the Praise of the Fathers, Sirach also recalls the patriarchal Eleazar by way of his son Phinehas: "Moreover, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, was glorious in might as a third, in that he was jealous for the God of all" (Sir 45:23). The covenant of high priesthood — "to him and to his seed... the high priesthood forever" (Sir 45:24) — is the inheritance Eleazar transmits.

The Maccabean Eleazars

Two Maccabean men carry the name. The first is Mattathias's fourth son: "Eleazar, who was surnamed Abaron" (1Ma 2:5), one of the five brothers — John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, Jonathan — who lead the revolt. His death at Beth-zechariah is one of the book's most concentrated set pieces. Seeing one elephant taller than the others and harnessed with the king's harness, "it seemed to him that the king was on it: and he exposed himself to deliver his people and to get himself an everlasting name. And he ran up to it boldly in the midst of the legion, killing on the right hand, and on the left, and they fell by him on this side and that side. And he went between the feet of the elephant, and put himself under it: and slew it, and it fell to the ground on him, and he died there" (1Ma 6:43-46). The narrator's editorial — "to deliver his people and to get himself an everlasting name" — frames the act as deliberate self-offering, not battle accident; the king is not on the beast.

A separate Eleazar is the father of Jason, one of two envoys Judas sends to Rome to seek alliance: "Judas chose Eupolemus the son of John, the son of Accos, and Jason the son of Eleazar, and he sent them to Rome to establish friendship and alliance with them" (1Ma 8:17). Nothing further is said of this Eleazar; the verse fixes only his son's diplomatic role.

Across the Canon

The name links priest and warrior, custodian and martyr. The Aaronic Eleazar sets the pattern — invested by stripping his father, named beside Joshua at every land allotment, fixed at the head of one of the two priestly half-lines — and the later Eleazars ring variations on the same notes: a custodian of the ark, a sword-fused hero of David, a Levite line ended in daughters, three Eleazars of the return, a colophon ancestor, a Maccabee crushed under the elephant he killed. In every case the name's etymology is borne out by narrative function: God's help is mediated through someone called Eleazar, whether at the door of the tent of meeting, on a hill in Ephraim, in a Philistine field, beside the ark at Kiriath-jearim, or under an elephant at Beth-zechariah.