Numbers 15-17; Psalm 35:17-28

Numbers 15
1-31 - Various Offerings

• When you come into the land that I am giving you...
• With burnt offerings, freewill offerings, or festival offerings, add a grain offering and a drink offering with the bull or the ram, for a pleasing odor to the LORD
• Resident aliens will abide by the same rules as Israelites
• When you eat the bread of the land, the first loaf shall belong to the LORD
• If you unintentionally fail to observe all these commandments, the congregation or individual will offer a burnt offering
• But whoever acts "high-handedly" shall be cut off from the people. Warning of things to come?
  

32-36 - Man caught gathering sticks on the sabbath day is stoned to death by the congregation Another warning of what happens when commandments are ignored?

37-41 - Fringes

• A blue cord at each corner of their garments - throughout their generations
• A reminder of the LORD's commandments
• "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD your God."

Numbers 16 - Revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
1-11 - The initial confrontation

• Korah, a Levite, and 3 others take 250 leading men and confront Moses and Aaron, accusing them of exalting themselves above everyone else - "You have gone too far!"
  
• Moses falls on his face, tells them to meet him in the morning -- with their incense-burners -- and God will show who his chosen one is. "You Levites have gone too far!"
  
• Moses accuses Levites of being too ambitious - you should feel privileged to be Levites, to be able to serve in the tabernacle -- but apparently, that's not enough. You also want to be priests.

12-14 - Dathan and Abiram's insubordination

• Moses sends for them, but they refuse: "We will not come!"
  
• You have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness
• You lord it over us
• You are not giving us the land flowing with milk and honey nor our inheritance
• "We will not come!"

15-35 - Punishment for Rebellion

• Moses again tells Korah and the 250 to meet him in the morning with their censors. Kind of like a sunrise duel, except this is with censer fire.
• Korah assembles "the whole congregation" in front of the tabernacle
• The glory of the LORD appears
• God tells Moses and Aaron to step aside so he can destroy the whole congregation
• They plead: "Shall one person sin and you become angry with the whole congregation?"
  
• At Moses' instruction, the whole congregation separates themselves from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram
• Moses warns: Now you'll know whether or not the LORD has sent me
• The earth swallows up the three men, with their wives, children, and little ones: "So they with all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol; the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly." Numbers 26:11 states that Korah's sons did not die. Apparently they were not part of the rebellion, or at least weren't in Korah's tent at the time.
  
• The people run in fear
• Fire consumes the 250 with the censers. What a perfectly terrifying scene! I cannot imagine the horror of it -- following after the open rebellion, the arrogance, the vying for position. There's no way anyone could have anticipated the deadly results of their prideful attitudes.

36-40 - Reminder of Rebellion

• God to Moses: "The censers of these sinners have become holy at the cost of their lives."
• Eleazar the priest takes bronze from censers and hammers them out for a covering for the altar.
• "A reminder to the Israelites that no outsider, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, shall approach to offer incense before the LORD...."

41-50 - Punishment Backfires

• The NEXT day -- the whole congregation rebels against Moses and Aaron: "You have killed the people of the LORD." It's all your fault!
  
• Again, God wants to kill them all
• Moses to Aaron: "Quickly offer incense and make atonement for the people."
• But a plague has already begun to affect the people. By the time Aaron offers the incense, 14,700 have died -- besides those who died in the "Korah affair."

This event is troubling on so many levels. What troubles me the most, I think, is that it reminds me of church troubles I have seen . If we could examine most church splits, I think we would identify some of these same attitudes.

Here Moses -- described as the meekest man on earth -- who didn't want this position in the first place -- is accused of exalting himself above the rest of the people. It's more than ever obvious to me that's why God chose him to lead.

Then come these leading men -- men highly respected by the congregation -- who cannot stand not "being in charge." They are good enough to be respected and influential, but have a deadly character flaw -- pride. After all God through Moses has brought them through, all they can see is they don't have the power they deserve. Because of their foolish pride -- and their underestimation of God's response to rebellion -- their families and followers lose their lives.

This is such a strong warning to us all NOT to follow men -- to distrust those who would encourage us to criticize, condemn and vilify those whom God has ordained as our leaders.

Numbers 17 - The Budding of Aaron's Rod
A kinder, gentler way of showing God's preferences:

• God to Moses: Each ancestral house leader [this must have been from the 12 original tribes] shall write his name on a staff and place them in the tabernacle in front of the ark of the covenant
• The one that would bud would be the man God would choose
  
• The next day, Aaron's rod (for the house of Levi) has not only put forth buds, it has produced blooms and borne ripe almonds.
• Aaron's rod to be kept with the covenant as a "warning to the rebels."
• The Israelites' reaction still one of fear: "We are perishing; we are lost, all of us are lost! Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the LORD will die. Are we all to perish?"

This seems to be the rockiest time yet in the history of the Israelites. Surely God is doubting his own wisdom in rescuing them from bondage.

Psalm 35:17-28
With the recent Numbers incident in mind, this could surely be Moses' prayer:
19 - "Do not let my treacherous enemies rejoice over me...for they do not speak peace, but they conceive deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land."