Day 44. Numbers 15-17

The LORD the God of Israel is different from the pagan gods worshipped by other nations. For one thing, he is not dependent on his devotees to feed him. He does not eat as mortals do. But he does enjoy the smell of food, and offerings of flesh and grain are burned on his altar "to make a pleasing odor for the Lord" (Numbers 15:3), much in the way that incense is offered, for its smell. The smell represents the prayers and offerings of the people. They go up in smoke—God does not retain any part of them. He desires obedience, not carbohydrates and protein.
And the people, for their part, are commanded to make a corporate offering of a bull for any sin done unintentionally by the whole congregation. This sin will be forgiven; "it was unintentional, and they have brought their offering" (15:25). An individual offering for unintentional sin was more modest, a mere goat (15:27), but it also availed.
Intentional sin—knowing the law and flouting it—was a much more serious matter. "Whoever acts high-handedly," says our text, "whether a native or an alien, affronts the Lord, and shall be cut off from the people" (15:30).
For this kind of high-handed sinning, we are given the example of the man who was caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. When his case is brought to the Lord, the verdict is death. He is taken outside the camp and stoned. Obedience to the law must be absolute. The fringes that the Israelites are commanded to wear on their garments (15:37-41) are a reminder to be obedient to all the commandments of the LORD and to make no accommodation with willful independence.
Israel is a community based upon obedience to the will of God, expressed by his friend and lieutenant Moses.
Any rebellion against that authority will be fatal, even when the cause is seen as just. The revolt of Korah, a cousin of Moses and a Levite, like that launched by Moses' sister Miriam in chapter 12, is an attempt to widen the base of power—to democratize the nation. The principle upon which Korah's revolt is based seems reasonable enough. The ringleaders ask—"All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them." Why does Moses alone speak to and for the LORD when all the people are his particular possession and in covenant relationship to him?
The result is predictable. The earth swallows up the rebels and their families, and they go down "alive into Sheol" (16:33). "Sheol" in the Old Testament is the shadowy cave under the earth where the spirits of the dead go. The God of Life has nothing to do with that place—it is literally God-forsaken—and any attempt by the living to contact spirits in Sheol is forbidden under pain of death. The religion of ancient Israel was not death-denying, but it was radically life-centered. The rebels are not only cast out of the community; they are utterly removed from the presence of the LORD—buried alive both physically and spiritually.
The reading for today ends with the story of the budding staff of Aaron. In the face of the challenge posed by the revolt of Korah, this miracle affirms the LORD's choice of the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron specifically as the sole servants and protectors of the tabernacle. They alone are to approach him directly. The rod that budded, flowered, and bore fruit was kept in the Ark of the Covenant as an heirloom and a "warning to rebels, so that [they] may make an end of their complaints against me, or else they may die" (17:10).
Order, based upon obedience, will be the foundation of the covenant community.