Nu 16: Stop the Plague!

       The next day, the congregation murmurs against Moses and Aaron, blaming them for the deaths. Are the people about to stone Moses and Aaron again? Beat them? Have they cornered the brothers against the tabernacle?

       When suddenly, they all look toward the tabernacle: the cloud covers it and the kabod of the LORD appears.

       By now, you’d think the congregation will have learned:

Cloud + kabod = Run away!

       If the mob have restrained Moses and Aaron, they must have let go, for Moses and Aaron come before the tabernacle. Compare verse 21 with 45.

       21 Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.

and

       45 Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces.

         People start dropping like flies. It seems that simultaneously, Moses both knows what is happening and knows what to do. 

            46 And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun.

            47 And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people.

       Here comes one of my favorite verses. I once used it in a sermon called, “Can One Change the Mind of God?” Moses seems to have changed the mind of God before. In desperation, Moses and Aaron attempt to change the mind of God once more.

       Aaron runs into the midst of the congregation. What happens next rocked my world.

         48 And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.

       14,700 died that day. If Aaron hadn’t run, how many more would have died? Can you picture the corpses on one side and terrified people on the other?

       When I was a teenager, I visited Gettysburg. Every American should see it. The rows and rows of markers as far as I could see left me profoundly numb and speechless. When I think of it now, I still feel the memory of the huge hole it left in me. 

        May the likes of it will never happen again.

       According to the National Park Service, there are ~1328 grave markers in the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Normandy has 9000+ grave markers.

       Here stands Aaron, with fourteen thousand dead on one side, over ten times the number of graves in Gettysburg. On his other side are all the rest of the children of Israel. 

                  50 And Aaron returned unto Moses unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the plague was stayed.

       May the likes of it never happen again.