An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 28: How do you know he's the chosen one? He's got a flowery stick (Numbers 16-20)

Numbers 16-20

How do you know he's the chosen one? He's got a flowery stick.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. 

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Numbers 16

“And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.”

In this chapter there’s another revolt against Moses by Korah, Dathan and Abiram, from amongst the Levites. They make some fairly reasonable complaints, that Moses is placing himself as a “prince” above the others (which is probably why previous chapters have been at such pains to paint Moses as a humble man, to make this seem less reasonable), and the whole business of spending years in a desert rather than this promised land of milk and honey – well … we’ve had this a few times before.

So Moses turns the judgment over to God, and calls the rebels together, 250 of them altogether. The choice is kind of stark, however! He refers to the rebels as wicked men who must be set apart from the others; and that if they die from normal means then they were right, but if God does something new and terrible to them it will prove that Moses is chosen to speak for God. And, indeed, the ground opens up and swallows everyone, even small children which seems pretty harsh. And then everyone else gets struck down by a plague. Moses and Aaron avert this by making a sacrifice.

Numbers 17

“Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers, of all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods: write thou every man's name upon his rod.”

In order to reinforce Aaron’s position as high priest, God bids Moses to do what is in the quote given above – that each of the twelve tribes should bring a rod with their name inscribed on it, with Aaron’s name on the Levite rod. These rods are laid on the altar overnight, and whichever one has brought forth buds (spoiler: it’s Aaron’s) will indicate who will lead. That’s it for this chapter, which is only 13 verses long. I can’t help but think of the Constitutional Peasant sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but rather than “strange women lying in ponds distributing swords” we have “mysteriously blossoming sticks” as a system of deciding supreme executive power, which does seem equally as spurious if you think about it more than you are supposed to.

Numbers 18

“And the LORD said unto Aaron, Thou and thy sons and thy father's house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.”

Some more repetition, this time confirming the special covenant with the Levites, that they are responsible for keeping the tabernacle pure and for conducting all the rites correctly; that the Levites are dedicated to God as a replacement for the firstborn, and that the tithes and the leftover offerings are theirs as part of the agreement. Nothing really new here either, it seems like a lot of Numbers is basically a variant writing of the contents of Leviticus.

Numbers 19

“This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.”

More ritual purity rules, which we’ve encountered before in Leviticus, although this time it feels like there are slightly more details. The chapter largely covers ritual purity after encounters with dead bodies, and the rules for purification of people and things that have become unclean because of this. As well as a seven day separation there is also “water of separation” which seems to be made from the ashes of a ritually slaughtered heifer. Not too much of interest here.

Numbers 20
“And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?”

Once again the Israelistes are grumbling, this time because there is no water, so Moses and Aaron bring forth water from a rock, and everyone is happy again, except God who is getting fed up with the lack of faith. You chose them, God. Didn’t your omniscience warn you this would happen?

The narrative moves on; the Israelites have travelled through the desert of Zin and are now in Kadesh, on the borders of Edom. Moses sends an envoy to the Edomites saying, let us pass through, we won’t eat or drink anything (or at least, will pay for anything that we do use), but the Edomites refuse and come out to fight; the upshot of this is not resolved in this chapter but I think we can safely assume that the Edomites lose.

There then follows a strange interlude where God strikes down Aaron, and passes the high priesthood over to his son Eleazar, because of the people’s earlier rebellion. But Aaron wasn’t involved in that, and was actually instrumental in creating the water, so what’s going on here? Aaron’s been a strange figure throughout – instrumental in the Egyptian plagues, but also responsible for the golden calf, I can’t make out what his motivation is – killing him here seems rather unfair and arbitrary, and it seems strange that it’s been written that God strikes him down rather than what could have been presented as a straightforward death, as Miriam also dies in this chapter. Or maybe the “striking down” means to become ill.