Because of his position, he had to keep up a brave front of omniscience; because he had to keep his fissiparous horde together, he was obliged to thunder confidently, even when unsure, and to display publicly a relentlessness he did not feel in his heart. So his image was stern, his watchword ‘Let the Law bend the mountain.’ There is no doubt truth in the early aggadic tradition that Aaron was more popular than his far greater brother: when Aaron died, everyone wept, but when Moses died only the menfolk mourned.
