Korah

In context

Numbers 15, just after the forty-year sentence, gives laws for “when you have come into the land” (Numbers 15:2). It separates wrongs done “unwittingly,” which an offering could atone for, from sin done “with a high hand,” in open defiance (Numbers 15:22–31). A man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath was stoned at the Lord’s command (Numbers 15:32–36). Israelites were to wear tassels with a blue cord on the edges of their clothes, to “remember all Yahweh’s commandments” (Numbers 15:38–39).

Korah, a Levite, with Dathan and Abiram of Reuben and 250 leaders, rose against Moses and Aaron: “You take too much on yourself” (Numbers 16:1–3). Moses answered that the Levites were already brought near to serve the Lord: “Do you seek the priesthood also?” (Numbers 16:9–10). The ground opened and swallowed the rebels with their households, and fire burned up the 250 (Numbers 16:31–35). When a plague broke out the next day, Aaron ran into the crowd with his incense and “stood between the dead and the living” (Numbers 16:46–48). These are hard chapters.

To show whom the Lord had chosen, each tribe’s leader gave Moses a staff, and he laid them in the Tent overnight. Aaron’s sprouted, blossomed and bore ripe almonds (Numbers 17:8). Hebrews names “Aaron’s rod that budded” among the things kept in the ark (Hebrews 9:4).