Page 91 - Pentateuch

This touches on a core spiritual point. Who can
approach God? Who can come near him (16:5,
8, 10, 16, 17, etc.)? The encampment of Israel
around the tent of meeting is a visual reminder
of relative closeness to God. All along, God has
given Moses the privilege of being closer to him
than anyone else. Now, a man, Korah,
challenges this pattern. He wants to define and
initiate closeness to God. The result is dramatic.
The earth splits apart under Korah and his
followers, swallowing them alive to Sheol
(16:31-34). The nation does not learn the
intended lesson and complains about Moses.
“You have killed the Lord’s people” (16:41). A
plague breaks out among them, killing an
additional 14,700 people before Aaron can
make atonement and stop the plague (16:46-
Fig. 66: Korah’s Rebellion etching Delin and Sculp, 50).
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Here again, we pause to reflect. God has the
right to dictate terms to us. Only his appointed messenger can approach him. We resist as sinful humans,
thinking we can have some say in the matter. Ancient Israel becomes a lesson for us. Wasn't God teaching
them something about his promised Messiah? The faithful Moses pointed to the future faithful Messiah
(Hebrews 3). Jesus warned, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me” (John 14:6). Had God not judged Korah, would he not have been blurring spiritual truth?
When we put Jesus in the background, are we not blurring spiritual truth? Isn't our failure as great as that
of Korah’s?

Yet Moses is human also. The complaints of the people get to him, and he starts complaining. He, too,
wonders if God is good since his load is so great (11:10-15). God’s solution is to place his Spirit on 70 other
leaders in Israel (11:17). The action is a positive response to Moses as if to say, “Here is some help.” The
action is also a warning. God transforms everyday “leaders and officials” (11:16) by simply giving them his
Spirit. Moses is not indispensable. God’s presence is. The humble Moses needs to remember this crucial
point (12:3). He is not God.

The last instruction in this section (chap. 19) concerns the proper way to handle death. The deaths of so
many people already, anticipating many more in the following years, presented a problem. Touching a dead
body made a person ceremonially unclean (Lev. 21:1-4), seeming to require sacrifices to make clean (Num.
6:9-12). This gets expensive and time-consuming. Since more than one person would be needed to bury
someone, the herds and flocks of Israel would be threatened. Israel needed a better way to take care of this
specific form of uncleanness. The younger generation needed a way to move ahead as the older generation
died. Death is the final consequence of the older generation’s sin. 106 So God provided with the ashes of a
red heifer (19:1-22).

106 Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 362.
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