Was Moses a Kohen? Priests, prayers and pillars of cloud

By Moshe Sokolow

The psalmist calls upon Israel to exalt G-d and assures them that if they call to Him, He will surely respond. To illustrate his point, he cites the examples of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, saying:

Moses and Aaron among His priests, Samuel, among those who call on His name— when they called to the LORD, He answered them. He spoke to them in a pillar of cloud; they obeyed His decrees, the law He gave them. (6-7)

Was Moses a priest (kohen)? Did G-d speak to Samuel from a pillar of cloud? One approach is to presume that these are poetic flourishes and not intended to be taken prosaically. The intention is to name three individuals, among them priests and prophets (“those who call on His name”) who were singularly successful in interceding with G-d on behalf of the Jewish people.

Another approach takes the verses more literally and endeavors to justify the designation of Moses as a priest and to locate the divine speech to Samuel, too, as emanating from the pillar of cloud. The former is illustrated by Radak, who wrote: “The use of priests is that Moses, too, was a priest since he first served in the priesthood during the seven preparatory days” that preceded the inauguration of the Tabernacle.

The latter is demonstrated by Rashbam, who wrote:

In the [Midrash] Pesikta this is derived from a lexical analogy (gʼzeirah shavah). There [Scripture] stated “At such times (v 'yeish) as the cloud rested over the Tabernacle” (Numbers 9:20) and with respect to Samuel it states: “Here he is (yeish) ahead of you" (1 Samuel 9:12).

In this context, we would do well to recall Jeremiah 15:1: “The LORD said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel were to intercede with Me, I would not be won over to that people. Dismiss them from My presence and let them go forth!"