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Welcome. I'm Cliff Hedges. This is Pastor Cliff's Notes. This is a podcast where we are studying the Bible. We're working our way through the book of Numbers. Today is episode 1633, and we're looking at Numbers chapter 17, verses 1 through 13. So God had taken the Israelites right to the very edge of the promised land, but they rebelled. They had a massive failure of faith, and the Lord sent them back into the wilderness to remain there until the faithless generation died off forty years. Now, sometime later, we don't know how long it is after this, a Levite named Korah and three men from the tribe of Reuben gathered two hundred and fifty prominent men of Israel, and they challenged the authority of Moses and Aaron. So Moses said, Each of you is to come to the tabernacle tomorrow morning and offer incense before the Lord, and let God decide who the leader is. So Aaron, Korah, and the two hundred and fifty men each offered incense at the entrance to the tabernacle. Fire came out and consumed the two hundred and fifty men. Then the earth opened up and swallowed the tents and families of Korah, Dathan, and Abrem, those are the two Reubenites. The next day the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, saying that they had killed the Lord's people, and then God's judgment on the people was a plague. And that was only stopped when Aaron offered incense properly in the midst of the people. That brings us to Numbers chapter seventeen, verse one. The Lord instructed Moses, speak to the Israelites and take one staff from them for each ancestral tribe, twelve staffs from all the leaders of their tribes. So he's collecting staffs, the walking sticks from each of the tribes. Now, the Hebrew word for tribe and staff is the same word, mate. And so we actually see in English tribe several times through here. The word tribe doesn't actually appear. The literal translation is father's households. It means tribe because he's talking about staffs throughout here. He uses ancestral homes versus tribe. So he's really saying take one staff from them for each ancestral home, father's household, twelve staffs from all the leaders of their ancestral homes. So it's uh minimize confusion. In English, tribe and staff are different words, so they'll be used here. Continuing in verse 2, write each man's name on his staff. Write Aaron's name on Levi's staff, because there's to be one staff for the head of each tribe. Then place them in the tent of meeting in front of the testimony where I meet with you. So he's going to take a staff from each tribal leader, and they each write their name on their staff, and then Moses is going to take them and put them in the tabernacle in front of the testimony. The testimony is the Ark of the Covenant, because in the Ark of the Covenant is the two stone tablets, the Ten Commandments, and that's the testimony. Now it says in front of the testimony. Does that mean on the side of the curtain that is the holy place, there where the golden altar of incense is? Or does that mean he's to go behind the curtain, actually to the Ark of the Covenant itself? Most people think this is behind the curtain. He's to get as close to where he meets with God as possible, right there behind the curtain, right at the Ark of the Covenant. He's to place these staffs from the leaders of the tribes there. Verse 5. The staff of the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of the Israelites' complaints that they have been making about you. So God has not been too amused with these complaints. Why are complaints such a bad thing? Well, when we complain about God, or what God is doing, or who God has chosen, those are indirect complaints about God, but they're still complaints about God. What we're saying is we're not satisfied with God. We're really saying we don't like what God is doing, who God has chosen, what God's plan is. So when we complain about God, we're showing a lack of faith. And that is the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be living in faith. We should be bringing glory to God, not complaints to God. Verse 6. So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and each of their leaders gave him a staff, one for each of the leaders of their tribes, twelve staffs in all, Aaron's staff was among them. Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of testimony. There's a question here. We often talk about the twelve tribes and the tribe of Levi. Because remember, at the end of the book of Genesis, Jacob, also named Israel, he has his twelve sons, the twelve tribes of Israel, but he takes Joseph's two sons and adopts them as his own, Ephraim and Manasseh, and makes them full sons, and so full tribes within Israel. So there's really 13 tribes. Now there are a couple of places where you'll see it mentioning Joseph, meaning Manasseh and Ephraim together. So in that case, if you did it that way, there would be twelve. And so how's this translated? Is the intention that it's twelve including Aaron's staff, or is it Aaron's staff among the twelve from the other tribes? We really can't say, and it hasn't changed the meaning in any way, but there's a question there of how they're being counted. Verse 8. The next day Moses entered the tent of the testimony and saw that Aaron's staff, representing the house of Levi, had sprouted, formed buds, blossomed, and produced almonds. So this is what God said would happen. He said, The staff of the man I choose will sprout. Well, it's more than just sprouted. It sprouted, formed buds, blossomed, and produced almonds. Verse nine, Moses then brought out all the staffs from the Lord's presence to the Israelites. They saw them, and each man took his own staff. So it's been made evident to everyone Aaron is the choice. The tribe of Levi are those who serve the Lord. And specifically Aaron is the leader of those who serve the Lord. Verse ten. The Lord told Moses, put Aaron's staff back in front of the testimony to be kept as a sign for the rebels, so that you may put an end to their complaints before me, or else they will die. So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. So this is all as a sign to demonstrate who God has chosen to be his priests. And specifically keep this as a sign for the future that I have chosen the Levites, the tribe, to be my ministers, but specifically the family of Aaron to be the priesthood. So the Moses did as the Lord commanded him. We've seen that a lot. This is actually the last time we see it, because it won't be too much longer after this that we actually have the sin of Moses, but we don't see this phrase, so Moses did as the Lord commanded him anymore. Verse 12, then the Israelites declared to Moses, Look, we're perishing. We're lost, we're all lost. Anyone who comes near the Lord's tabernacle will die. Will we all perish? Well, they're saying something that's actually true. How many times have we been told, if you go in an unauthorized way to the tabernacle, you will die. So yeah, it was part of the complaint from Korah and the others was we're all holy. We can all approach the Lord. Well now they're saying if we approach the Lord, we're gonna die. Well, they're missing the point that you can approach the Lord the way the Lord has said you can approach him through God's chosen mediators, the priests. And that's still the case, is the way we approach God is through his chosen mediator, Jesus Christ. Now something here uh it's easy to get lost as we read through it is Aaron's staff produced almond. Okay, big deal. Well, think about the golden lampstand that was made, and it's placed in the tabernacle to provide light to shine over the table of the show bread, the twelve loaves of bread symbolizing the tribes of Israel and God's presence among them. However, the descriptions of the construction of the golden lampstand with the buds and the blossoms. It's all based on an almond tree. And that's the image of the tree of life, this golden lampstand. And in fact, the Hebrew word for almond, sakhed, is very close to the Hebrew word sakad, which means to watch. And it's purposely so because the almond tree blossoms early and is a archer of the onset of spring. So it's like the almond tree watches for the coming of spring. So the idea of to watch and almond are closely related there grammatically. In fact, in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 1, 11 and 12, we read, Then the word of the Lord came to me asking, What do you see, Jeremiah? I replied, I see a branch of an almond tree. The Lord said to me, You have seen correctly, for I watch over my word to accomplish it. So there you see the word almond being played with the word watch. This image of an almond branch is to demonstrate that God is watching over his word. By that he means the word that he has spoken, the judgment he has pronounced on Israel, and he's watching it in order to complete and accomplish what he said he would do. Bring it to fulfillment. And so we got some imagery here with Aaron's staff. It's a little miniature lampstand, it's a little miniature almond tree, sign of life, future blessing, and God will watch over and fulfill his promise of a great blessing through the gift of the priesthood. Because it's only through the priests can these people actually approach God. And so the priesthood is a gift, and God is making it clear that he has chosen the tribe of Levi, but specifically the family of Aaron, to be the priests. And so this is clarifying everything that went on with the rebellion of Korah. No, Aaron's descendants are the priests. Now we have two chapters after this focused on the priesthood. And it's the whole reason it falls there is because he's just demonstrated it's all through the priests that you approach me. And so there'll be some teaching now about the priesthood. Thanks for joining me. Join me again next time as we continue working through numbers.