Eleazar, Son of Aaron
Eleazar was the third son of Aaron. After his elder brothers Nadab and Abihu died, he and his younger brother Ithamar were the surviving sons who served at the sanctuary. His lineage ran from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kehath, and Amram to Aaron, and Moses was his uncle.
During the wilderness journey Eleazar bore particular priestly responsibilities, including charge of the oil for the lampstand, the sweet incense, the daily grain offering, and the anointing oil. He oversaw the Kohathites in transporting the Ark of the Covenant, the table of showbread, and the altar. After the rebellion of Korah, he took the rebels' bronze censers and hammered them into a covering for the altar.
On Mount Hor, Moses clothed Eleazar with the sacred vestments before the death of Aaron, formally transferring the high-priestly office. Eleazar thus became the second High Priest of Israel and held the office for more than twenty years. He shared with Moses in taking the census, assisted at the inauguration of Joshua, and helped oversee the distribution of the land among the tribes.
Phineas, the Zealous High Priest
Phineas was the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron, a priest during the Exodus who later succeeded his father as the third High Priest of Israel. He came to prominence at Shittim, where the Moabites and Midianites had drawn Israelites into intermarriage and the worship of Baal-peor. When Zimri, son of the Simeonite prince Salu, openly defied Moses by bringing a Midianite woman before the congregation, Phineas, filled with zeal, entered the tent and killed them both with a spear, thereby staying a plague that had already killed twenty-four thousand.
For this act God granted Phineas and his descendants a covenant of peace and an everlasting hereditary priesthood, because he was zealous for his God. At God's command Phineas led an Israelite army of twelve thousand against the Midianites to answer the deception of Peor; in that campaign five Midianite kings and Balaam were killed. He later investigated and defused the matter of the altar built east of the Jordan by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, preventing a religious division among the people.
According to the OCA synaxarion Phineas died at an advanced age, traditionally placed around 1500 B.C., and the high priesthood continued through his descendants as had been promised.
Lineage and Legacy
Eleazar's wife, a daughter of Putiel, bore Phineas. Eleazar was buried at Gibeah, a place allotted to Phineas in the hill country of Ephraim; Jewish tradition locates the burial at Awarta. Phineas himself held property in the mountains of Ephraim, where he buried his father.
By the genealogy preserved in 1 Chronicles, the descendants of Phineas included Abishua, Bukki, Uzzi, Zerahiah, Meraioth, Amariah, and Ahitub, and ultimately Zadok. The high priesthood remained in Eleazar's line until the time of Eli and later returned to it through Zadok.
