The most reliable testimony to a person's rightness or wrongness is a sign from God. Like those staffs, or rods, one of which blossomed. The staff of a tribal elder is a symbol of his authority. Of his power. In those days, power...
The most reliable testimony to a person's rightness or wrongness is a sign from God. Like those staffs, or rods, one of which blossomed. The staff of a tribal elder is a symbol of his authority. Of his power. In those days, power was inseparable from authority, as it is today, yet then power was not only physical, but also other, more than natural, supernatural. Without such power one could be neither a true leader, nor a true elder, nor a true warrior. And one could not be a priest either; that goes without saying, since a person connected with the world of gods and spirits had to be, above all, a person of power. Of course, the Levitical priesthood is not traditional priestcraft.
Moses' community was from the beginning more prophetic than priestly. Sacrifices and everything connected with worship were, for Moses and for those closest to him, more an addition to the main thing. The main thing was communion with God as such, those very meetings with God face to face about which the Pentateuch speaks so often. In such communion with God, power was not the main thing. A far greater role was played by a person's awareness of God's will as it was revealed to him in inner experience, and by God's love. Such revelation means more for knowing God and for communion with God than the experience of contact with God's power. Yet there were moments when the manifestation of God's power was precisely what could dot the i's.
Of course, God could not be forced; therefore the staffs are simply left in the Tabernacle, leaving God to do what He considers necessary. If a person possesses power, and if God Himself gives him that power, it cannot fail to show itself in the person's life. In his surroundings. Through his things, even though they are not a direct extension of the human body, they nevertheless touch it directly. A staff is something very personal; it is a symbol of the person. In those days people said that a person's soul was in his staff, just as samurai say that a warrior's soul is in his sword. In a person who possesses power, that power cannot fail to show itself even in his staff.
So it is in the story: to whom will God give power? The staff of each of the twelve elders is placed before God; He is to choose. The blossoming staff is an obvious sign, an undeniable miracle. No human being has enough power to make a stick bloom; only God can do that. The answer is obvious: God gives His power to Aaron, and the dispute is over.
17 The blossoming of Aaron's rod, Num 17:1-9.
It is laid up for a memorial, Num 17:10-11.
The people are terrified, Num 17:12-13.
17:2 Of every one - Not of every person, but of every tribe. A rod - That staff, or rod, which the princes carried in their hands as tokens oftheir dignity and authority. Every man's name - Every prince's: for they being the first - born, and the chief of their tribes might above all others pretend to the priesthood, if it was communicable to any of their tribes, and besides each prince represented all his tribe: so that this was a full decision of the question. And this place seems to confirm, that not only Korah and the Levites, but also those of other tribes contested with Moses and Aaron about the priesthood, as that which belonged to all the congregation they being all holy.
17:3 Aaron's name - Rather than Levi's, for that would have left the controversy undecided between Aaron and the other Levites, whereas this would justify the appropriation of the priesthood to Aaron's family. One rod - There shall be in this, as there is in all the other tribes, only one rod, and that for the head of their tribe, who is Aaron in this tribe: whereas it might have been expected that there should have been two rods, one for Aaron, and another for his competitors of the same tribe. But Aaron's name was sufficient to determine both the tribe, and that branch or family of the tribe, to whom this dignity should be affixed.
17:4 Before the testimony - That is, before the ark of the testimony, close by the ark. I will meet with you - And manifest my mind to you, for the ending of this dispute.
17:6 Among their rods - Was laid up with the rest, being either one of the twelve, as the Hebrews affirm, or the thirteenth, as others think.
17:8 Into the tabernacle - Into the most holy place, which he might safely do under the protection of God's command, though otherwise none but the high - priest might enter there, and that once in a year.
17:10 To be kept for a token - it is probable, the buds and blossoms and fruit, all which could never have grown together, but by miracle, continued fresh, the same which produced them in a night preserving them for ages.
17:12 We perish - Words of consternation, arising from the remembrance of these severe and repeated judgments, from the threatening of death upon any succeeding murmurings, and from the sense of their own guilt and weakness, which made them fear lest they should relapse into the same miscarriages, and thereby bring the vengeance of God upon themselves.
17:13 Near - Nearer than be should do; an error which we may easily commit. Will God proceed with us according to his strict justice, till all the people be cut off?