Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Numbers 16:12, Post-Revolution

Jeremy Rosen - Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Numbers 16:12, Post-Revolution

- If you remember, oh first of all, I must apologise for in previous weeks, the size of the print has not been what it should be. I hope it’s satisfactory now, but if for any reason it isn’t, then please do let me know. So we are back to the story of Korah, which is in many respects the similar kind of situation that we find ourselves in today in which there is a challenge to authority. The community is divided and you have different people with different dogs in the game interested in pushing their particular point of view. So we are now chapter 16 and it is verse four, where when the people came the different elements, there was a priestly group, there was a tribal group, each one vying for power and wanting to take over. And there were individuals with individual complaints. These three different elements came together to approach Moses and Aaron under the leadership of this man, Korah who was a family member from the Levite family. When Moses heard the complaints, he fell on his face. And so in verse four, which we did at the end of last week, in verse four it says he fell on his face. And in verse five he then speaks to Korah specifically and the rest of the community and he says, look, this is not up to me, this is a divine issue. This whole show has been organised and orchestrated by God and I’m just the tool here so, you know, don’t blame me and therefore I’m going to have a public trial of ordeal, a test to see whether God’s on my side or not. And therefore in verse six and seven he said, I want you to take your sensors, your pans on which you’ll have coals and fire and I want you to stand by the tabernacle in front and let God decide what’s what.

So that is the official challenge. And again, as I mentioned briefly last week, it seems strange that they actually agreed to this challenge because earlier we have come across a situation where fire came out and killed the two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu precisely because they brought sensors that were not part of the ritual. Anyway, now we are going to have a dialogue. And this dialogue is fascinating for its use of language and what the actual words tell us about the character of the people complaining and what they really had in mind. This is one of the examples where language is absolutely crucial. So Moses starts off by addressing them in verse eight and he says, listen to me you guys. So that phrase in itself please you just listen to me, sons of Levi, the English doesn’t say please here. But if you look at the Hebrew, it says, that is to say the one, two, three, four, five, six word, seventh letter. The na is not just shema, listen but na please you sons of Levi. And then he comes with an interesting phrase, is it not enough. Already God has given you status and a position. To bring you closer to him through the tabernacle and the service. To stand before the community and to serve their needs. You have been given this important status in verse 10, but you are also after the high priesthood, which which seems to indicate that their real complaint is against Aaron or maybe Moses putting Aaron in that position. verse 11, therefore and your whole community who have got together against God, why are you complaining about Aaron?

Why are you complaining about him? Because he’s been put in that position by me, but I did it on higher reasons. He turns to Dathan and Abiram who are not priests, who are not involved in the priestly issue but have another complaint. Maybe this is just a complaint about Moses, specifically about his position. So he calls Dathan and Abiram and they turn to him and they say, we’re not interested in negotiating, we’re not going, leave us alone. It’s quite a sort of cheeky thing to say. They’re not even prepared to talk. And unfortunately in many political and social debates, nobody wants to hear the other point of view, but look what they say then next. They mimic Moses. They’re making fun of him because they say , is it no small thing. And remember, go back and see what Moses said in verse nine. It started off in verse nine, , is it a small thing? So they’re throwing the words back at him. Don’t turn to us and say, is it a small thing? Look at yourself. , is it a small thing? In verse 13. you took us out of the land flow with milk and honey, a-huh, so Egypt was flowing with milk and honey and if it was you weren’t benefiting from it. So there is here the BBC reporting with its slant to kill us in the wilderness that you want to rule over us. So now here we are. Clearly their objection is to Moses, whereas Korahs objection seems to have been primarily against Aaron. Verse 14 and indeed, you haven’t brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey, which you promised us you are going to do. You haven’t given us our fields and our vineyards we’re not better off.

And not only that, but you know we’ve been wandering around in the desert now for a long time and we’re mightily fed up with it. Are you trying to blind or gouge out the eyes, or pull the wool over the eyes of all these people? We are not going. Verse 15, this Moses gets very angry. and he turns to God and he says, don’t pay any attention to what they’re doing. After all, I’ve never taken, I’ve never benefited in any way. This, imagine somebody in the Senate or in the Congress saying that nowadays or any politician, he said, I’ve never taken an ass from you. I’ve never been bad or taken advantage of any one of you. This famous phrase, , I haven’t taken one ass from you is repeated later on in the book of Samuel, when the people turn to Samuel and say, look, you know you’ve been a good judge. No complaints about you, but it’s time for a king. And at that moment Samuel turns around and says, I haven’t taken an ass from you at all, which of course raises the academic question of which came first. Was it Samuel who said it first? Or Moses who said it first? For the traditionalists which include me, I would say if it’s in the Torah, which is the earlier, the most famous and the most popular of the books of the Bible, then that should have been the original one and then people coming after remember that phrase and use it again. And there are several, several examples of this throughout the Bible where there are echoes of different books of different authors. And that’s quite normal because everybody to some extent picks up something from a previous culture from a previous way of speaking.

Anyway, verse 16, Moses now turns to Korah and he says, and all your community come and stand before God and I’ll be there and Aaron will be there tomorrow too. And each person will take his sensor or his pan, or whatever they use to put the nice spices in. You will then then put in sense there and you’ll offer it before God, 250 of you, which looks like the whole of the Levite tribe or not all of it, but a big chunk of it. In verse 18, each one took his pan and they put this nice spice on it and they stood before the entrance of the tabernacle and they gary, gathered together, Korah all his complainants from there to by the entrance to the tabernacle and God comes and appears down from the sky. And God says to Moses and to Aaron, he says, verse 21, get away from these guys. I’m going to get rid of them, I’m going to , so you step back from this lot. And God says to Moses. Now this is strange because at the moment it seems that what Moses was saying, look you priests the 250 of you with your fire pans, you stand in front of the tabernacle and together with Aaron and God will choose between the two of you. But then he says Moses and possibly Aaron, it’s ambiguous, step back a bit and then he turns to the rest of the community. We are including now Dathan and Abiram who are not the family. And God is saying to Moses and Aaron get away from this whole mob.

Moses gets up. And he goes to Dathan and Abiram. And the elders of Israel on Moses’ side go with him. And they together say, get back from these guys. So we are not clear whether they’re all together or whether they are two distinct groups. The Levites on the one hand, the Dathan and Abiram the other run group on the other and he says, don’t touch anything that belongs to them. Keep away from them because you might be caught up in, caught up in their crime and you might be punished if you associate with them in any way. So verse 27, all these people get everybody else the elders, Moses, to leave the tents of Korah, to leave the tents of Dathan and Abiram. And interesting Dathan and Abiram stand at the entrance of their tents with their family in defiance saying we don’t care. It’s incredible these Dathan and Abiram characters. But again they exist in every country and every political system anywhere.

And then in verse 28, Moses says, you’ll know from what’s going to happen now that I am simply an agent of God. It’s God who sent me to do these things. It’s not me. I didn’t think of it, it’s not my wish. I never wanted it to begin with. And I’ve asked to be relieved of it many times. These people they are not going to die the way normal people die. What happens to most people. Will happen to them. They are going to have a very special fate and it will prove that , God did not send me. And then in verse 30 he says, if God can do anything, or if God has already created something and I’m going to come back to that in a minute, let the earth open its mouth, swallow them up, that and everything that belongs to them, the they will go down, alive into the grave. These people have rebelled and provoked God. I’m so sorry everybody, but I messed up and pressed the wrong button in my enthusiasm by mistake. Can you all hear me? Can I be heard? I don’t know if I can. I hope I can.

• Yeah, we can hear you.

• Okay. How long was I out for? I’m sorry.

• [Announcer] Just a minute.

• Okay, anyway, so let’s get back to where we are. I’m now. Everything’s fine. I just need to get up to the text and put it there and so we should be okay. So as I was saying, in the process of creation, according to this rabbinic tradition, there were certain things that defy the norms of creation. For example, the case of Balaams ass being able to open up his mouth and talk to Balaam, or indeed the idea of the earth opening up whenever it is required as we are going to see happening now. And because these things defy the norm of creation, the Mishna says that these things were created at the last moment, Erev Shabbat, before Shabbat came in, these things suddenly appeared, which was their way of trying to explain something which is not rational. Now of course from our point of view, earthquakes certainly are if this was an earthquake, but this looked like something that could not be explained rationally. It’s interesting how in each generation people try very hard to find rational explanations, or non-rational explanations, mystical explanations for what happens in the Bible. And the truth of the matter is we take it according to our own understanding of what makes more sense to us. But anyway, to return, he then says that the, if we go down to the verse where we were before, he says, if I am right and you separate yourself, then we are going to see exactly what happens. And so we are verse 29 and in verse 30 we have this statement. If God will do it because God is capable of doing it, and the earth will open its mouth and swallow all a lot of them and they all go down to the grave, then you will know that these people have provoked God and God does not approve. Verse 31, when he finished speaking all these things, the earth opened up underneath them, the earth in verse 32 opened its mouth, swallowed them and their homes and everybody that belonged to Korah all his property.

In verse 33, and they all went down, everything alive into the pit and the earth covered up after them and they were lost to the community. So this kind of magic or dramatic effect event is supposed to clarify the fact that they were wrong and says quite specifically that they and their family and everybody went down into the pit. There are two problems so far with this narrative. You remember right at the beginning the narrative said, there was a guy from the tribe Reuben called On Ben Pelet, On Ben Pelet. He has not mentioned again, whereas Dathan and Abiram are mentioned again several times. So On Ben Pelet, what happened to him, it’s not mentioned anywhere, no reference to him until again we get to the Talmud. The Talmud and the creativity of rabbinic minds is amazing. And they say On Ben Pelet was standing at the door and his wife blocked him and she said, under no circumstances are you going to go and join these people. And he didn’t and that’s why he survived and he’s not mentioned as going down into the earth. The other one is something that is a problem in the Torah itself, and this is in the Torah itself and later on we’re going to see that it says, the sons of Korah did not die. Which is very strange because it has says here in black and white that they and all their children, and their family, and everything belonged to them went down. Well there are two opinions here in the rabbis. The one I don’t like is that now there was a special little plateau sticking up in the ground halfway down that they landed on and that enabled them to escape. But the other one which I prefer is a way of saying they did repent. They did not want to identify with their parents.

They were grown, they could make their own mind up and they choose not to join in the rebellion, which again allows for the possibility that one can do to express the word, to vow one can repent, no matter how far one has gone down the road, there’s always a way back. So those are some of the sidelines that are added onto the actual texts that we have here. And so there we have the story of Korah and his rebellion. And the fire then in verse 34, all the people around suddenly started screaming, wow, we’re worried, the earth is going to swallow us too. But no, what happens is, fire came out and consumed only the 250 men who were bringing their incense. So the people who aspired to be priests, they were burnt up too. The second case of incense brought sort of, shall we say, unusually or out of a religious context can have a disastrous effect. One might even make a point of saying that included in the incense were certain, as mentioned in the Bible, were certain ingredients that could according to some be like marijuana, could be some sort of drug. And it is this use of the drug that makes this census so explosive and why one has to be very careful as one should be if one experiments with things like that. Anyway, we are now on chapter 17. Chapter 17, God then speaks to Moses and the family and he’s going to go forward and get out of this mess. I want you to tell Eleazar, the son of Iran, the priest who is now going to be the number, the successor of Aaron.

I want you to pick up all these pans, these fire pans on which all the fire had burnt up the coals inside, because , because I’m going to make them sacred. In other words, even out of something as shall we say, negative and destructive as this rebellion and the misuse of the pans, we can still change them into something positive. Verse three, these these fire pans that have caused the death of these people, I want you to call in a blacksmith and I want you to beat them into plating that will be placed on the altar. On the altar that had been used for offering God something to God in a profane way, in a rebellious way, can be used for offering it in a positive way and let it be something that people will remember and this kind of ambiguity of something that it can be used for something bad, it can be used for something good runs right through so many things in the Torah, we’ve mentioned before, the idea of holy kadosh also meaning a prostitute that to cleanse can also mean at the same time to desecrate or to dirty. And so there are so many examples of where we see in the Torah that nothing is intrinsically bad, nothing is intrinsically bad, it’s all a matter of how we use it, or how we human beings use it from our bodies to everything else around. So in verse four, Eleazar, the priest takes these senses and made out of copper and beats them into something that will be placed over the tabernacle, over the altar. As in verse five, memorial, so that people should know they should not misuse things that are used for wholly or positive purposes and that should not end up like Korah and his community who spoke out against God and against Moses who was God’s agent. Verse six, what happens then?

You would’ve thought, I think I suggest you would’ve thought that people would have realised they were wrong. They would’ve realised that Moses and God are on pretty good terms and that should be the end of it. But no verse six, they’re complaining again in verse six, the whole of the community of Israel complains against Moses and Aaron saying you are responsible for killing these people. And it says if you look in verse six, all the congregation of Israel. Now Paul and Moses there, they can’t win. Whatever they do, they can’t win. But again, this keeps on emphasising how volatile the Jewish people were then, let alone how volatile they are to today. Nothing has changed over three and a half thousand years ago. It’s a amazing when you think about it and again that the Torah you would’ve thought given the way other religious books later on liked to look only at the good side, not at the bad side, does not shrink from mentioning what’s wrong with the people. So when the people start complaining, once God, like the sheriff has to step into town, comes into town and Moses and Aaron stand before the tabernacle and God in verse nine speaks to Moses and he says, just get away from these people. I’ll get rid of them. So once again, this is the third time God is saying this, golden calf twice and God is saying to Moses and Aaron, I really can’t stand this lot. I really can’t stand. They don’t deserve it. There a horrible bunch of people. So you go away, I’m going to destroy them. Verse 11, . I’m sorry I missed out. The last part of verse 10 is they fell on their faces.

So that’s what started this whole thing. When they came, Korah came along and started complaining. Moses neon fell on their faces as if to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, please help. And so here clearly , when they’re falling on the faces again, they’re saying again, no, no, no, no, no, don’t do this. Verse 11, . So Moses says to Aaron, take you now take a fire pan of your own and take and put it with fire from the altar. And then I want you to take some incense, some nice spices and I want you to run through the community because plague is about to, or has already begun to attack those people who are complaining. And this is what Aaron does, he takes his sensor with incense and it starts running through. Now, maybe there was some special fumes coming from this incense that had a curative effect. Maybe it was just a reaction to the first use of the incense in a destructive way to using it in a positive way. But he managed as a result of this standing verse 13, between the dead and the alive and it stopped the plague. And in verse 14, the people who died in that plague were 14,700 members apart from the people who died when the period of Korah. In verse 15, Aaron returns to Moses to the entrance of the tabernacle and that is where the plague ends. This whole story is interesting because of the numbers. You see if we keep on talking about the whole of the community, technically speaking, the whole of the community is supposed to be 600,000 men between the ages of 18 and upwards and double that for women and children. It’s a whole lot.

And if you remember after the golden calf episode where the people in general had turned to Aaron and asked for a golden calf and after that again the masses were stricken by the priests going out and attacking the ringleaders and then subsequently by other people that the numbers were in thousands, not hundreds of thousands. And here, having said the whole of the community was responsible, we’re merely talking and I know merely still something but we’re talking about, simply talking about 14,700. So that doesn’t look like the whole of the community is being plagued, is being punished. On the other hand, you could argue that more weren’t simply because of what Aaron did with the incenses by intervening. Anyway, the plague ends in verse 15. But now we want another confirmation that the priesthood is a divine appointment and has divine approval. And so we have what we like a kind of a trial, some sort of magic to show who’s good and who’s bad. And so now God says, I want in verse 17, everybody and everybody from the chief main houses, from the main families according to their tribes, the 12 tribes, I want each one to take a stick, a staff and to carve their name on it and the name of the tribe. And then on a separate one, I want you to carve the name of Aaron on the tribe of Levi as one tribe and as the head of the tribe. And I want you to place in verse 19, I want you to these in the before the in front of the Aron, which is the arc of the covenant in the tabernacle. Where I will meet with you there. And in verse 20, and whoever I choose his stick is suddenly going to produce burst into flower.

And I will get rid once and for all of the complaints of the children of Israel that they are complaining about you Aaron, as usurping the power unfairly. Verse 21, Moses speaks to the tune of Israel and all the princes of the tribes one staff, one prince, each one, each one according to the family, 12 altogether and the ones of Aaron, and they’re placed in front of God in the tent of the tabernacle in front of the Aron, and left there in the morning, 23 in the morning, Moses comes into the tent and behold only the staff of Aaron has managed to shoot forth and produce buds and blossoms. And not only that but almonds have suddenly appeared. So this must have been an almond tree. One assumes the sticks and they all happened overnight. Amazing miracle. And Moses took out all the sticks before God to the children of Israel. And they saw and they looked at each ones and they saw that only Aaron’s one has got flowers on it. And God says to mo in verse 25, leave the staff of Aaron as witness leave name Mary as a lesson to all those who try to rebel. And stop this complaining otherwise you are going to die. And that is exactly what Moses did. 27. They don’t stop. The children of Israel said to Moses, we are lost. We’re lost. We’re going to be destroyed. and Moses denied whoever so much as comes anywhere near to the tabernacle, will die. Are we condemned now to die? They don’t stop with their complaints. They should have seen already that they were not going to die and that they’ve come through in one piece time after time. But that doesn’t help. In other words, when somebody has a preconception is prejudiced to think that something’s going to happen. Logic or even events can’t dissuade them.

Again, something we see around us all the time today. So verse two once again, chapter 18, you should accept the role of the tribes of tribe of Levi. They will be there to be with you. Look at this pun, we go Levi is the name of the tribe. tribe of your father. has the same route as Levi. It also actually is the root of a levaya, to follow behind a dead person. But here it means these priests role is to support you, to be with you and to serve you, not just to perform ceremonies in the tabernacle, but their job is to teach and to help you medically from every point of view they are there as support for you. And they will keep in verse three, the tradition alive, their duties and their responsibilities alive. But even they have certain limitations. They can’t just treat what’s in the tabernacle as their property or misuse it, or use it for other things. But there again for we repeat this, this is repeated and the repeating something as we’ve mentioned before, is a sign of how important this message is that it has to be reiterated. They will support you and be attached to you and be responsible for the service in the tabernacle. But only them and anybody who else who tries to do it, they’re going to be in trouble.

And you must do this and do this to avoid God’s anger coming back for the way you have betrayed him and ignored him. Because in verse six, I’ve taken this tribe from the children of Israel to be to you as this kind of particular cast of responsibility of management and religious authority and and they will be able to participate in some of the sacrifices and they will have those parts that they can eat in recompense. So they will be supported by part of the sacrifices and by what we’re going to talk about later the tithes. But they essentially are not going to have to earn a living like everybody else’s, that’s the quid pro quo for being a priest at that stage. And as we know later on there are going to be so many examples of priests who abused their position and did go after material gains rather than just service to the community. So in verse seven, you and your sons God now addressing Levites, you have this responsibility in the altar and everything to do with it that goes on behind the curtains and to serve and only you and anybody else cannot do it. And if they do it, they’re going to get to a sticky end. And that’s where we’ll stop for this week and turn to the questions.

Q&A and Comments:

So Carla says, what happens to me all the time don’t matter or good. I’m glad other people realise that my errors take place. I know, I’m sorry, disappeared, Mira, but I’m back again.

It’s interesting that Moses Linda says, does not plead on Korah and on Aaron’s behalf, unlike the sin of the golden calf, which is worse. Well first of all, Moses only pleaded for Aaron I suppose because he felt that he had been pressurised, it wasn’t his will to do it. Whereas Korah had taken the initiative. Remember the people gathered around Aaron and they said, we want you to do this and Aaron if you like capitulated, but he wasn’t the initiator, whereas Korah certainly was the person who initiated it.

Anthony Tiba says there a travelling rabbi whose name I forget, who put his ear to the ground and heard Korah and followers saying, we were wrong and Moses and Aaron were right. That’s correct. There is a mid rush which says, that it was possible to hear them down in the ground. Their voice is still coming up. But I don’t think that’s any more than nice mythology.

Richard, it says that 250 were divide by the earthquake, but then it says fire consumed them. And that’s a very good point. There is an ambiguity there and some people express the ambiguity by saying that really it was just Korah and his family who went into the earthquake and the and the others were consumed later. Alternatively it could be said that their bodies were collected and then burnt in a sense to emphasise to the public what had happened. But nevertheless, this is a very interesting question and a question that is certainly ambiguous in the context of the Torah.

Barry says, something’s always bothered me. The fire pans were to plate the altar, but the altars already plated are not usual to plate over existing plating. That’s a very good question. And it was indeed plated and there were actually two altars. And so it’s assuming it’s the main altar and it would appear that this was an extra cover over the altar. And also because remember the altar was, there were different kinds of altars with different kinds of support underneath. So there were altars that were made of stones that were not hewn, there were altars made of dust of dirt. And it’s not at all clear which one, but one of them obviously had either this extra or this special cover.

Shelly, maybe miracles don’t work as far as instilling faith. Elijah calls on God to send down fire to consume his wet sacrifice on Mount Carmel to prove to the people that God, not Baal is their God. And that didn’t solve the issue either. You make an excellent point because throughout the Torah there are so-called miracles. Think of the miracle of the 10 plagues, think of the miracle of crossing of the Red Sea. Think of the miracle of water appearing and it doesn’t seem to have any effect. Which is why Maimonide says very clearly that miracles are the least important element in the whole structure of religious faith, that it’s the lowest form, if you need a miracle that is hardly impressive and people soon forget the miracle. So it is a very, very difficult point and it’s something that I struggle with. Why does the Torah mention miracles all the time as if it’s pandering to the credulous and the simple, but the official party line is that people forget and they need to be reminded. And some people say, we are reminded every day of the miracle of life and we should appreciate it that way. But still it’s an excellent point. I don’t like miracles and I, but they’re part of the tradition. But as you know, the tradition also says that the age of prophecy and the age of these kinds of miracles have passed. But there are other people who say no, the revival of the state of Israel is a miracle. All kinds of things.

Q: Israel, how do we understand the process of continually complaining God, continually forgiving? How do you understand this is trying to teach us as people who continue the traditions of Torah Judaism?

A: Yes, this is particularly the challenge that we have at the moment. This is, you know, sort of why is it that we are being attacked on all sides in the immediate area, militarily, beyond it, ideologically we are constantly being attacked. But on the same time, you could also say we are constantly misbehaving. Most Jews have shown over a period of time that their loyalty to the Jewish faith is very, very weak, very, very strong. And conversely, there are those who are outwardly so passionately religious, but don’t seem to understand that they’re part of a wider community that needs their involvement. And so the fact is that it’s human nature. Human nature is when we have something that hurts us, that that world is terrible and it’s disastrous. When things go well, often we don’t appreciate it. And that as I say, is human nature. The when we come to try to explain God, I just don’t think we can explain God. God is not human. There’s no human term that we apply to God that actually describes God and therefore to treat God as though God was a human being doesn’t make sense. And so then you will say, well then what is the nature of our relationship with God? And I would say that it’s in a way, and everything is an analogy in a way, it’s love for one’s parents, or maybe love for one’s wife, or while love for one’s husband, which sometimes defies the fact that we may be betrayed or we may betray. And yet that feeling of commitment, of emotional commitment is there and that is what gives us strength and enables us to continue.

Thank you Carla.

Q: Mickey Shaw, did these complaints really happen all in the same short period or they being collected together effect?

A: That is an excellent question, Mickey, an excellent question. But I think the fact that they are mentioned at one stage, one time does mean that they were part of this single rebellion, which is known as the Korah Rebellion.

Q: Shirley asked, but when did the Korah rebellion take place? Right after the incident with the spies decree, 40 years wondering death, or near the end of the 40 years, the rebels may have felt they had nothing to lose.

A: That’s a very good question and there are different interpretations of when it happened, but it does seem to have happened right towards the end because we are going to see following up from this, the death of Aaron and the death of Miriam. The fact that they are close to each other might seem that it happened at round about the same time. But that again is speculation using the text. And again, as with all calculations of dates and times, the interpreters, the rabbis of the Talmud often come up with different dates.

Thank you Steven. Thank you Rita.

And there ladies and gentlemen, we will end for the day and hope to see you next week again.