The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 238

EXPOSITION. THE PLAGUE BEGUN AND AVERTED (vers. tabernacle on the day of atonement (Levit. 41-50). Ver. 41.-Ye have killed the xvi.). Whether Moses received any intimation people of the Lord. They had in truth that the wrath might be thus averted, or forfeited their own lives, and Moses and whether it was the daring thought of a Aaron had no more part in their death than devoted heart when all else failed, it is im- St. Peter had in the death of Ananias and possible to say. As it had no precedent, so Sapphira. But it was easy to represent the it never seems to have been repeated; nor is matter as a personal conflict between two the name or idea of atonement anywhere parties, in which the one had triumphed by else connected with the offering of incense destroying the other. In speaking of Korab apart from the shedding of blood. and his company as the " people of the Lord," Ver. 48.-And he ■tood between the dead they meant to say that their lives were as and the living. If this is to be understood sacred as the lives of Moses and Aaron, and literally, as seems most consistent with the the crime of taking them as great ; they did character of the narrative, th2n the pla.,,"lle not know, or did not heed, that their own must have been strictly local in its character, immtmity was due to the intercession of striking down its victims in one quarter those whom they thus charged with sacrile- before passing on to another; only thus gious murder. could it be arrested by the actual inter• Ver. 42. -The cloud covered it. Not position of Aaron with the smoking censer. soaring above it, as usual, but lying close And the plague was stayed. Thus was down upon it, to signify that the presence of given to the people the most striking and the Lord had passed in some special sense public proof of the saving efficacy of tho.t into the tabernacle (see on c,h. xii. 5, 10). mediato rial and intercessory office which they Ver. 45.-Get you up. ~~iv, from ClQ~. had been ready to invade ILDd to reject. The command is substantially the same as Thus also was it shown that who.tin profane that in ver. 21. Since it was not obeyed, we hands was a savour of death unto death, must conclude (o.s before) that it was not in- became when rightly 1LDd lawfully used a tended to be obeyed. They fell on their savour of life unto life. faces. In horror and dismay. No doubt Ver. 49.-Fourteen thou■and and ■even they would have interceded (as in ver. 22), hundred. A very large number to have died but that Moses perceived through some in the course of a few minutes, as the narra- Divine intimation that wrath had gone tive seems to imply. The plagne was un- forth, and that some more prevailing form doubtedly of a supernatural cbo.ro.cter, and of mediation than mere words must be cannot bo considered as a pestilence or other sought. natural visitation. Beside them that died Ver. 46.-Take a oen■er. Rather, "the about the matter of Korab. These were (1) censer," i. e. the proper censer of the high the two hundred and fifty men who offered priest, which he used upon the great day of incense, (2) D11.than and Abiram, 1LDd their atonement (Levit. xvi. 12), and which is families, (3) probably Korab himseU, (4) said in Heb. ix. 4 to have been of gold, and possibly somo other partisans of Korah (see to have been kept in the moat holy place. on ver. 32), making m all about 300 souls. It is not, however, mentioned amongst the Thus we get the round number of 15,000 ns sacred furniture in the Levitical books. And the total of those that perished on this occasion. go quickly, 71~ii1. Rather, "takaitquickly." Ver. 50.-And the plague was stayed. And make an atonement for them. There Not only temporarily, while Aaron stood was no precedent for making an incense between the dead and the living, but finally offe1ing after this fashion, but it W,'I.S on the nml effectually. analogy of the rite perkrmed within the  '220 THE DOOK OF NUMBERS. [ea. XVI, 41-50.