Lange Commentary - Numbers 16:36 - 16:50

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Lange Commentary - Numbers 16:36 - 16:50


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

B.—THE MONUMENT OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT, AND ON THE OTHER HAND THE MURMURING CONGREGATION

Num_16:36-50 (Heb. Text Numbers 17:1-13).

36And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 37Speak unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning, and scatter thou the fire yonder; for they are hallowed. 38The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make them broad plates for a covering of the altar: for they offered them before the Lord, therefore they are hallowed: and they shall be a sign unto the children of Israel. 39And Eleazar the priest took the brazen censers, wherewith they that were burnt had offered; and they were made broad plates for 40a covering of the altar: To be a memorial unto the children of Israel, that no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before the Lord; that he be not as Korah, and as his company: as the Lord said to him by the hand of Moses.

41But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord. 42And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation: and, behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared. 43And Moses and Aaron came before the etabernacle of the congregation.

44And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 45Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces.

46And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun. 47And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people. 48And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. 49Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, besides them that died about the matter of Korah. 50And Aaron returned unto Moses unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the plague was stayed.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The directions to Eleazar, the son and successor of Aaron, Num_16:36-40. To him is committed the place of burning in front of the Tabernacle. The fire that is still there is, as something profane, to be scattered away off and thus destroyed. The censers, however, have been sanctified, not by their having been brought near to the sanctuary, but by the judgment on the sinners, who sinned against their souls and forfeited their lives. Hence the censers must be gathered out of the burning and be used as plates to cover the altar of burnt-offerings. This would be a monument to the people to warn them of the judgment of God. It was done accordingly.

The murmuring congregation, Num_16:41-50. There is presented to us here a very remarkable psychological phenomenon. First, there arises a murmuring in the whole congregation against Moses and Aaron, that comes even to their ears: Ye have killed the people of the LORD, 41. At first, therefore, their faith in the sanctity of the fanatics continued, and they went on believing that they were the real people of God, even after the great penal judgment. A similar obduracy and blindness appears also after the judgment on the priests of Baal, after the destruction of Jerusalem, after the Thirty Years’ war, as the blame of the last is laid on the Protestants. But how could Moses be blamed for the extraordinary penal judgment, especially when he, on the contrary, had prayed for the preservation of the people excepting Korah? Clearly they must have assumed, either that Moses foresaw the natural conditions of the judgment, say the conflagration proceeding from the burning of incense and the earthquake occasioned along with it, or that he employed magic arts to bring about the calamities. In a word, here superstitious belief in a fanatical idol prevails against the most convincing facts; history is given up for the sake of the delusive image of a would-be idea. And in fact so decidedly is this the case that the congregation make a faction against Moses and Aaron before the Tabernacle. This time the glory of the Lord spreads a cloud of smoke that covers the whole Tabernacle, and behind which disappear from the people the hard-pressed men of God. The meaning of this is: they shall raise themselves ( äֵøֹîåּ ) out of this congregation and above it, Jehovah will exterminate this apparently obdurate congregation. The men fall on their faces before the majesty of Jehovah, but an intercession is no more audible (see 1Jn_5:16). Rather Moses recognizes that the wrath ( ÷ֶöֶó , the forth-bursting wrath) of God, as the real source of all mortal judgments (Psalms 90), has begun to pour out on the congregation, that outside, therefore, the decreed plague of sudden death ( ðֶâֵó ) had begun. But this time Aaron must intercede as high-priest, and make atonement for the congregation with incense as the symbol of intercession. Thus he must hasten out with the censer into the midst of the congregation. He places himself, burning incense, between the dead and the living; a grand position, rich in symbolical significance. Thus the plague is shut off, interned ( àָöַø ).

The 250 censers of the fanatics effected nothing but deadly fatality; the one censer of the true high-priest saves life, conquers death by making a separation between the living and the dead (an antithesis brought out by Kurtz)! It is true that 14,700 had already fallen, apart from the destruction of the faction of Korah. The smoking incense of the high-priest’s atonement had here no doubt the same significance that the Brazen Serpent had later (21). It is, therefore, misleading when Keil affirms: the power and efficacy of it did not depend on the inwardness and efficacy of the subjective faith, but had a firm foundation in the objective power of the divine institution. That verges on the opus operatum, and the question arises: is not subjective faith reckoned along with the objective institution?

According to Keil, the plague consisted probably in a sudden falling dead, as in the case of a pest that breaks out with extreme violence: “not that we should regard it simply as a plague.” But is not also a plague a divine fatality? Of course, after the awful reaction against the penal judgments of God, there must have set in an equally awful reaction of conscience, as in the case of the death of Ananias and Sapphira. The truth of the high-priestly office was of course mightily confirmed by this atonement.

HOMILETICAL HINTS

on all of 16

The rebellion of Korah. The nature of the spirit of faction. 1) A great common antipathy against the spirit and the law of the rightfully existing order. 2) An agitation of ambitious heads. 3) A coalition of egotistic and opposing interests. 4) A mutinous working up of the masses. The spiritualism of the Levites in league with the legitimism of the Reubenites and the anarchical lusts of the people. The fanatically anticipated priesthood. A certain disposition of the race of Korah to inspiration appeared in later times through the sons of Korah in the Korahitic poets and leaders of song. On who drew back, the sons of Korah who refused to join in: praise of circumspection and reflection, especially in times of seductive excitement. Moses agitated yet steadfast. How, after his words of reproof to Korah, he seemed to take the position of the opponents and thereby brought about their judgment. The double form of the judgment. The stiff-necked, blind adhesion of the congregation to their betrayers, their aggravated complicity. The great fatality impending over the congregation that was persisting in its blindness, and the atoning priest. The smoke of the censer was the visible image of the compassionate and forgiving intercession. Aaron between the dead and the living, or the most beautiful and exalted moment in his life as priest.

Footnotes:

away off.

which.

burn.

and that.

Tent of Meeting.

the.

bring it.

omit an.

assembly.

omit an.

by.