Even though Moses and Aaron get the majority of the spotlight through the Exodus story, other minor players appear from time to time, sometimes in major stories.
Take Hur, for example. We first see him in Exodus 17 as one of two men holding up the arms of Moses during the battle against the Amalekites. He’s obviously of great significance even then, since the man holding up Moses’ other arm is Aaron, Moses’ brother.
The next time Hur appears is here in Exodus 24. Moses ascends onto the mountain to receive the Law directly from God. In his absence, Moses tells the people to bring any kind of legal dispute to either Aaron or Hur. They act as his representatives in Moses’ absence.
This is all we know about Hur (even though other men by the same name appear elsewhere in Scripture). He’s important, he has great judgment, but despite appearing in some pivotal moments in Scripture, he’s essentially lost to history.
Tradition fills in some of the gaps, but should always be taken with a grain of salt. According to some commentators, Hur was Aaron and Moses’ brother-in-law, the husband of their sister Miriam. According to other traditions, Hur is actually their nephew, the son of Miriam and her husband Caleb, one of the twelve spies.
Part of the reason for his sudden disappearance may be another tradition that says he was killed during the construction of the Golden Calf. Per the Midrash, Hur stood up against the people who wanted to build the idol, calling them “severed necks.” In response, the people killed him. This could explain why Hur disappears after Exodus 24 and why Aaron alone is punished.
Let’s be honest, though: Nobody really knows what happened to Hur. If it is true that Hur stood up to the rebels, though, then that paints another interesting picture on his legacy. Exodus 31:2 states that Bezalel, who was the son (or grandson) of Hur, was the one responsible for overseeing construction of God’s Temple.
If it’s the same Hur, then it shows Bezalel was as zealous in creating a house for God as his father was in protecting God’s name. What a legacy that would be.
