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The Budding of Aaron’s Rod17 The L ord spoke to Moses, saying: 2Speak to the Israelites, and get twelve staffs from them, one for each ancestral house, from all the leaders of their ancestral houses. Write each man’s name on his staff, 3and write Aaron’s name on the staff of Levi. For there shall be one staff for the head of each ancestral house. 4Place them in the tent of meeting before the covenant, where I meet with you. 5And the staff of the man whom I choose shall sprout; thus I will put a stop to the complaints of the Israelites that they continually make against you. 6Moses spoke to the Israelites; and all their leaders gave him staffs, one for each leader, according to their ancestral houses, twelve staffs; and the staff of Aaron was among theirs. 7So Moses placed the staffs before the L ord in the tent of the covenant. 8 When Moses went into the tent of the covenant on the next day, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted. It put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds. 9Then Moses brought out all the staffs from before the L ord to all the Israelites; and they looked, and each man took his staff. 10And the L ord said to Moses, “Put back the staff of Aaron before the covenant, to be kept as a warning to rebels, so that you may make an end of their complaints against me, or else they will die.” 11Moses did so; just as the L ord commanded him, so he did. 12 The Israelites said to Moses, “We are perishing; we are lost, all of us are lost! 13Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the L ord will die. Are we all to perish?” New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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12. And the children of Israel spoke unto Moses. It was indeed somewhat better to be alarmed by admiration of God’s power than as if they had despised it in brutal stupidity; but there is a medium between torpor or obstinacy, and consternation. It is true that believers tremble at the judgments of God, and, in proportion as each of us has advanced in piety, so we are the more affected by a sense of His anger. But this fear humbles believers in such a manner that they nevertheless seek after God; whilst the reprobate so tremble as fretfully to desire to drive God far away from them. Hence it arose that the Israelites, stunned as it were by God’s severity, which they deemed excessive, deplored their wretched lot; for, inasmuch as they had no sense of God’s goodness, the chastisement to them was like a gibbet rather than a medicine. They exclaim, therefore, that they are destroyed, because God so severely avenges His polluted worship; as if all such instances of rigor were not profitable for the purpose of rendering them more heedful and cautious. No doubt this servile fear sometimes prepares men for repentance; but nothing is more perilous than to rest in it, because it first engenders bitterness and indignation, and at length drives them to despair, Howsoever formidable, then, may be God’s severity, let us learn at the same time to apprehend His mercy, so that we may be prepared to endure willingly with meek and quiet minds the punishments which we have deserved. In short, this passage shows how little progress the Israelites had made, since the rods of God so greatly exasperated them, that they cut themselves off from all hope of salvation. For this is the meaning of the words, “Shall we be consumed with dying?” as if it were not the case that God, on the contrary, was preserving them from death, when in His paternal solicitude He warned them of their danger. |