Murmuring and Plague—When Aaron Stood between the Living and the Dead

For many people, if they know anything at all about the 16th chapter of the Book of Numbers, it's probably going to be a memory of Korah's Rebellion— and maybe the groaner of a pun: Korah thought he was in good standing, but he was really at fault, which of course, is a reference to his death when a shifting fault line opened a chasm beneath him.  

The Israelites were serving God's sentence for their obstinance: Forty Years Wandering in the Wilderness.  Korah, from the tribe of Levi, supported by another 250 community leaders and two families of Rubenites, Dathan and Abiram, had never fully repented for their role in causing that situation and directed the blame at Moses.  They reckoned that if Moses had been any good at leadership, he'd have come up with a way for them to be in the Promised Land of milk & honey. After all, Moses had asked God to relent after that other issue with the Golden Calf, but now Moses had accepted the 40-year punishment and wouldn't even try to do anything about it.  They thought Moses was— well, let's say that Korah's opinion of Moses was analogous to Hillary's opinions of Donald Trump. So they planned a coup. Lacking the availability of Russians for bringing a fake collusion charge, they skipped straight to accusing Moses and Aaron of exalting themselves above the assembly of the LORD.  "Arrogant narcissists!" they murmured, "thinking they are better than us."   

I am not going to detail the first 35 verses of chapter 16. It is a thrilling story that you can review for yourself. But the gist of it was that Moses challenged Korah and his supporters to an incense burn-off to be held the next day. Moses also wanted to talk with Dathan and Abiram, but they accused Moses of wanting to gouge out their eyes and refused to hear him out.  The next day, when the Glory showed up and it became apparent the God wanted to put an end to EVERYBODY all at once, Moses and Aaron did some on-their-face negotiating with God. The rest of the assembly was given an opportunity to step away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram before the earth opened and swallowed them alive.  The 250 men left with incense in their censers (firepans) panicked, and the fire of God consumed them.

The coup had failed, and the next five verses Ought To Have ended the sorry affair. The remaining assembly Ought To Have learned respect for and fear of the Lord.  There Ought To Have been an understanding of Righteousness and Holiness. Here are those five verses:

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Say to Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, that he shall take up the censers out of the midst of the blaze, for they are holy; and you scatter the burning coals abroad. As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be made into hammered sheets for a plating of the altar, since they did present them before the LORD and they are holy; and they shall be for a sign to the sons of Israel." 
So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers which the men who were burned had offered, and they hammered them out as a plating for the altar, as a reminder to the sons of Israel that no layman who is not of the descendants of Aaron should come near to burn incense before the LORD; so that he will not become like Korah and his company— just as the LORD had spoken to him through Moses.
~ Numbers 16:36-40   

A wealth of information about holiness, administrative authority, and respect for what is sacred is packed into that passage.  It is not my purpose to unpack it now because I really want to get on with the parallel between that coup attempt of the past and this coup attempt of the present. But do note that the Lord told Moses to have Eleazar collect the censers of the dead; (a) we see the beginning of transference of the duty to the next generation, and (b) Aaron remains ceremonially clean (because he did not touch the dead) and therefore was eligible for what will happen next.

And now...    Murmuring brings a Plague

If you thought the Israelites might have caught a clue, nope. You'd be wrong.  The very next day their traitorous mouths were accusing Moses of murder.  Yes. Seriously. Murder!

Verse 41 But on the next day all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the LORD.”
 
Go figure! They'd had Egyptians hand them gold and jewels. They'd all been healed at the first Passover. They've seen the Red Sea stand as a wall and walked across on dry ground. They'd seen the awesome lightnings atop Mt. Sinai. They were being fed with manna in a wilderness where there's nothing but rock and sand. Their clothing was not wearing out. If they'd used toilet paper then, their roll would have spun a never-ending supply.  And still they grumbled.

Well, the figuring isn't all that hard these days. It's fairly easy to see the parallels between the Israelites back then and major segments of the population today. Enabled by a Legacy Media with little understanding of God's Holiness, the murmuring against our President runs nonstop, and when the cameras are on, the narrative becomes punctuated with full-out accusations and lies.

Eventually God had had enough. He showed up at the tent of meeting. The cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared. God was going to defend His friend Moses. That's what friends do. The Good News Translation has God telling Moses and Aaron, "Move back from these people, and I will destroy them on the spot!"  The chronic whining and criticism had brought on a plague.  The protection had lifted.

Although at first, Moses and Aaron fell facedown to intercede as before, Moses quickly discerned that this time was different. This time there was no begging for mercy. This time he could not pray it away. This time required action. ...and Moses said to Aaron, "Take your fire pan, put live coals from the altar in it, and put some incense on the coals. Then hurry with it to the people and perform the ritual of purification for them. Hurry! The LORD's anger has already broken out and an epidemic has already begun." GNT verse 46. 

Notice that this time it took the authority of a priest to make atonement for the people.  These are Old Testament rules; but the need to have respect for holiness does not change just because we got a New Testament. In 1 Peter 2:5 we are told that New Covenant believers "are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Our authority is in Christ. New Testament believers can be given a priesthood, but that only increases our need to maintain a "fear of the Lord."


So Aaron took the censer as Moses had ordered and ran into the midst of the assembly. And seeing that the plague had begun among the people, he offered the incense and made atonement for the people.
~ Numbers 16:47, Berean Study Bible 

Aaron's censer held live coals and incense.  The censers of the 250 men who died were bronze, indicating that they were used at the altar of burnt offering. The censer used by the High Priest for atonement was made of gold. For both, the live coals came from the sacred fire of the altar, representing God. Aaron's incense also came from the tabernacle, and Psalm 141: 1-2 establishes that incense symbolizes prayer:  
    I call upon You, O LORD; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to You.
    May my prayer be set before You like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering.
The picture is Holy God consuming our prayers. The live coal and incense work together to release fragrance. Both were necessary to cover their sin; the $2 phrase is "made propitiation."

He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague stopped. Numbers 16:48

Here, Aaron was a type of Christ. He held the offices of mediator and intercessor as an extension of his priesthood. Under the New Covenant, the provision looks like this: 

 …because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly befits us—One who is holy, innocent, undefiled, set apart from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 
~ Hebrews 7:24-26, Berean Study Bible

I know that there are plenty of people who would happily laugh at me for positing that the likes of murmuring by CNN, MSNBC,  The New York Times, The Washington Post, Google News, and Buzzfeed brought on Covid-19.  "That's not scientific!" they'll chortle. Who you gonna believe, the Living God or Stephen Hawking? … Okay, Stephen's dead, but that's the point, isn't it?
So, tucked in right at the end of Numbers 16, the Bible gives us an example of chronic murmuring against God's chosen leader being the act that precipitated the plague!  "Trump is no Moses!" comes the retort.  Hmm, maybe not, but he is a biblical character!  or technically, he fits the typology of a biblical character.

The truth is that slander and lies can open all sorts of evil doors in the spirit realm. You just don't know what might come out. Contemporary Western culture is often dismissive of that idea, even though the principle that words carry power is found throughout the Bible, and we are told we will be held accountable for every empty, do-nothing word we speak (cf Matthew 12:36).

The rebellious and refractory words and behaviors of many top figures in politics and media have hit levels of recalcitrance against God and against God's will for the United States that is off the charts. The physiological sciences have documented that a daily bath of doubt, anxiety, and fear-inducing emotions can and does stress the immune system. Observed science is not incompatible with the Lord; paradoxically, His invisible qualities have always been observable in His workmanship (cf Romans 1:20).

We are separated from the Ancient Near-East by thousands of miles, thousands of years, and different words using different alphabets, but men are still grumbling against God and rebelling against His plan.  At the societal level, it has surpassed rudeness and gone to full-blown contempt for God's ways. These sins are obvious. You don't need me to list them. They surround us. Yesterday's example was Speaker Pelosi deliberately holding up everyone's financial relief from the impact of a pandemic because she made a power-play to add funding for murdering babies in the womb. Tomorrow Satan will roll out a new atrocity.

The 'Church' has been both deceived and intimidated. It bought into the falsehood that she must remain so totally separate from the state that her influence was lost, and she stood down for the lie that taking a stand for righteousness is wickedly judgmental and mean. How absurd that promoting righteousness is un-Christlike!  
Most Christians don't need to repent for bank robbery and wild orgies; the sins that so easily beset the Church are usually more like those of the Israelites in Numbers 16: Rather than pursue God, they sought His presence at their convenience, and did not delight in the Lord's way of doing things. 

So What's the Answer?  

Moses and Aaron went to the front of the tent of meeting; they positioned themselves in the place where the Lord's presence was.  From this place they took action.  Holy fire and prayer was the antidote to stay the plague of Numbers 16. 

I've seen people quoting Psalm 91 more often since the onset of Covid-19. The pattern is the same: Moses sheltered under the Most High. Regarding God was Moses' lifestyle, not an occasional event. He made the Lord his dwelling place.  Because Moses loved God, God delivered him. Because Moses knew God's name, God protected him.  Moses lived amidst the holy fire and had on-going conversations with God. 

Aaron took his stand between the dead and the living so that the plague was checked, and then he returned to the doorway of the tent of meeting where Moses had remained in God's presence. That should be our model.



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For Further Contemplation (because ending an epidemic is not the end; there are still lost who need to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and there are evildoers who need to be stopped) 
   •••   Malachi 3:13 - 4:6
¹³“Your words against Me have been harsh,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against You?’
¹⁴You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the LORD of Hosts?
¹⁵So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only do evildoers prosper, they even test God and escape.’”
¹⁶At that time those who feared the LORD spoke with one another, and the LORD listened and heard them. So a scroll of remembrance was written before Him regarding those who feared the LORD and honored His name.
¹⁷“They will be Mine,” says the LORD of Hosts, “on the day when I prepare My treasured possession. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.
¹⁸So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

¹“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”
²“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like calves from the stall.
³Then you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Hosts.  
⁴“Remember the law of Moses My servant, the statutes and ordinances I commanded him for all Israel at Horeb.
⁵Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful Day of the LORD.
⁶And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”