Numbers 17:13

_WHOSOEVER COMETH ANY THING NEAR UNTO THE TABERNACLE OF THE LORD SHALL DIE: SHALL WE BE CONSUMED WITH DYING?_ Cometh any thing near - i:e., nearer than he ought to do; an error into which many may fall. Will the stern justice of God overtake every slight offence? We shall all be destroyed. Some, however, regard this exclamation as the symptom of a new discontent, rather than the indication of a reverential and submissive spirit. Let us fear and sin not. Between the end of this chapter and the beginning of Numbers 20:1 there is a protracted interval of 37 years. Nothing is known of the intervening period beyond a bare record of encampments (Numbers 33:1); for although it is said (Psalms 95:1) that for forty year

8-13 While all the other rods remained as they were. Aaron's rod became a living branch. In some places there were buds, in others blossoms, in others fruit, at the same time; all this was miraculous. Thus Aaron was manifested to be under the special blessing of Heaven. Fruitfulness is the best evidence of a Divine call; and the plants of God's setting, and the boughs cut off them, will flourish. This rod was preserved, to take away the murmurings of the people, that they might not die. The design of God, in all his providences, and in the memorials of them, is to take away sin. Christ was manifested to take away sin. Christ is expressly called a rod out of the stem of Jesse: little prospect was there, according to human views, that he should ever flourish. But the dry rod revived and blossomed to the confusion of his adversaries. The people cry, Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish...

A new section should begin with these verses. They are connected retrospectively with Numbers 16; and form the immediate introduction to Numbers 18. The people were terror-stricken by the fate of the company of Korah and by the plague. Presumption passed by reaction into despair. Was there any approach for them to the tabernacle of the Lord? Was there any escape from death, except by keeping aloof from His presence? The answers are supplied by the ordinances which testified that the God of judgment was still a God of grace and of love....

EXPOSITION AARON'S ROD THAT BUDDED (Numbers 17:1). NUMBERS 17:1 AND THE LORD SPAKE. Presumably upon the same day, since the design was to prevent any recurrence of the sin and punishment described above. NUMBERS 17:2 TAKE OF EVERY ONE OF THEM A ROD. Literally, "take of them a rod, a rod," _i.e; _a rod apiece, in the way immediately particularized. hsilgnE:egaugnaL\מַטֶּה} _ _is used for the staff of Judah (Genesis 38:18) and for the rod of Moses ...

WHOSOEVER COMETH ANYTHING NEAR UNTO THE TABERNACLE OF THE LORD SHALL DIE,.... They who before were so bold and daring as to think the priesthood was common to them with Aaron, or they had as good a right to it, and might go into the sanctuary of the Lord where he did, are now so frightened at the rod being laid up as a token against them, that they thought they must not come near the tabernacle at all, and, if they did, would be in the utmost danger of death: SHALL WE BE CONSUMED WITH DYING? such violent deaths, until there are none left of us? but the Syriac and Arabic versions render the words affirmatively; we are near or about to be consumed; and so the Targum of Onkelos, lo, we are to be consumed; which agrees best with the preceding clause, for they would scarcely make a question of what they had affirmed....

7. THE PRIESTHOOD OF AARON CONFIRMED CHAPTER 17 _ 1. The divine command (Numbers 17:1)_ 2. The rods before Jehovah (Numbers 17:6) 3. The blossoming rod of Aaron (Numbers 17:8) Little comment is needed on this chapter. The blossoming and fruit bearing rod of Aaron is another confirmation of the priesthood. Standing among the dying, “making an atonement,” he is a type of Christ in His atoning work. The blossoming rod is the beautiful figure of resurrection. The rods were absolutely dead, not a sign of life was there. And Aaron's rod received life during that night and life was there in its abundance, buds, blossoms and almonds. Christ risen from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sle

THE BUDDING OF AARON'S ROD (from P). The superiority of Levi over the other tribes is finally vindicated through the budding of the rod of Aaron (the representative of that tribe) when a rod for each tribe is laid up before the Ark. Rods (or staves) were usually carried by persons of distinction among the Hebrews (Numbers 21:18; Genesis 38:18; 1 Samuel 14:43) as among the Babylonians (Herodotus, i. 195). Fanciful stories, which are in some degree parallel to this story, and describe the sprouting of sapless staves or shafts, occur in the classical tales of Hercules-' club and Romulus'spear (which took root and grew) Numbers 17:2

TABERNACLE. habitation. Hebrew. _mishkan._ App-40. DIE... DYING. Figure of speech _Epizeuxis_ (App-6), as in Numbers 17:12, to emphasize alarm....

_shall we perish all of us?_ The exact force of the words is doubtful. They may mean -Shall we completely come to an end by expiring?" of which R.V. is a correct paraphrase: or -Shall we ever finish expiring?" i.e. -can we ever be free from the danger of death" if we approach the Tent?...

WHOSOEVER COMETH—NEAR UNTO THE TABERNACLE—SHALL DIE— i.e. "We are now convinced, and firmly believe, that whosoever cometh near to the tabernacle, to officiate as a priest, without the divine appointment, shall certainly be struck dead by the hand of God." Nothing can more strongly paint the consternation of the people, than the words in this and the preceding verse: they are always in extremes, either daring and presumptuous, or abject and full of despair; now they seem to have such a slavish fear of God upon their spirits, from the late severe visitation, that they speak of it as extremely dangerous to engage at all in sacred duties, left, by committing one error against the instituted forms of religion, they should suffer death, as their brethren had done: to obviate which cavil, the following declaration seems intended, ch. Numbers 18:1. REFLECTIONS.—The rods are produced, an