The Budding of Aaron’s Rod (Numbers 17)

Aaron’s Rod as God’s Vindication of the Priesthood

All right, let's turn to Numbers chapter 16. We have a few verses left to cover in chapter 16. So we're gonna be looking at verses 41 through the rest of the chapter and then chapter 17, which deals with the budding of Aaron's rod.

So before we look at that, let's open in prayer. Lord, we're thankful to be in your house this evening among friends and among family, really, because we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And because we are in Christ, we have the blessings that were promised to the people of God.

So Lord, as we look at this story from Exodus chapter 16 and 17, I pray that you would open our hearts to receive what you have for us through your word, through your Holy Spirit, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.

Numbers chapter 16, 41 through chapter 17.

On the next day, all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron.

You have killed the people of the Lord.

Now it happened when the congregation had gathered against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tabernacle of meeting. Suddenly, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared. Then Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of meeting, and the Lord spoke to Moses.

Get away from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment.

And they fell on their faces. So Moses said to Aaron,.

Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar. Put incense on it, and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them. For wrath has gone out from the Lord. The plague has begun.

Then Aaron took it, as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the assembly. And already the plague had begun among the people. So he put in the incense and made atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living.

So the plague was stopped. Now those who died in the plague were 14 ,700, besides those who died in the Korah incident. So Aaron returned to Moses at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, for the plague had stopped.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,.

Speak to the children of Israel, and get from them a rod from each father's house, all their leaders according to their father's houses, 12 rods. Write each man's name on his rod. And you shall write Aaron's name on the rod of Levi.

For there shall be one rod for the head of each father's house. Then you shall place them in the tabernacle of meeting before the testimony where I meet with you. And it shall be that the rod of the man whom I choose will blossom.

Thus I will rid myself of the complaints of the children of Israel, which they make against you.

So Moses spoke to the children of Israel, and each of their leaders gave him a rod apiece. For each leader, according to their father's houses, 12 rods. And the rod of Aaron was among their rods. And Moses placed the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness.

Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses went into the tabernacle of witness, and behold, the rod of Aaron of the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds, and the fruit of the fruit of Moses had produced blossoms and yielded ripe almonds.

Then Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord to all the children of Israel, and they looked, and each man took his rod. And the Lord said to Moses,.

Bring Aaron's rod back before the testimony to be kept as a sign against the rebels that you may put their complaints away from me, lest they die.

Thus did Moses, just as the Lord had commanded him, so he did. So the children of Israel spoke to Moses.

Surely we die, we perish, we all perish. Whoever even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord must die. Shall we all utterly die? So last week we covered the majority of chapter 16 with the rebellion of Korah, and we saw how that rebellion ended.

The ground opened up and swallowed the rebels alive, and then the fire of the Lord came and devoured the 250 men that were offering sacrifices. Who knows what the fire of the Lord is? Well, the scripture doesn't actually tell us, but what's people's best guess?

Probably thunder, I mean, lightning.

Lightning, I mean, that's usually what people assume. So the lightning or the fire went out, consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense. What were they trying to do? They were trying to wrestle the priesthood away from Aaron and take it for themselves.

So that's what's on the line here. The priesthood, who would be able to serve? And who did the Lord say was gonna serve? Aaron and his sons. Well, the people had other ideas. So here in Numbers chapter 17, this is the account of Aaron's rod that budded, and what's happening, this is the Lord authenticating the Aaronic priesthood forever.

So before we get into chapter 17, we still have a few verses left over from last time. Let's look at verse 35. Number 16, verse 35. And a fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering incense.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, tell Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, to pick up the censers out of the blaze, for they are holy, and scatter the fire some distance away. So these censers are holy because despite who used them and how they used them, they were used in the ministry of the tabernacle, therefore they are holy.

Verse 38, the censers of these men who sinned against their own souls, let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, because they presented them before the Lord, therefore they are holy, and they shall be assigned to the children of Israel.

So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned up had presented, and they were hammered out as a covering on the altar. To be a memorial. What's another word for a memorial?

Perpetual, yeah.

Okay, so to be a memorial or a reminder to the children of Israel that no outsider who is not a descendant of Aaron should come near to offer incense before the Lord, that he might not become like Korah and his companions, just as the Lord had said to him through Moses.

So just a couple of things on this memorial. You see this type of thing again and again throughout the Old Testament where, say, a pillar is set up to mark the spot, or in this case, the censers are hammered out and a covering is made for the altar.

Not only is the purpose to remind people of what happened, there's a lesson to be learned through all this. And what's the lesson?

Don't complain.

Yeah, don't try this again. Remember what happened last time? So there's a lesson to be learned because as the saying goes, those who don't know their history are, what, doomed to repeat it. And unfortunately, even with the reminders, the Israelites still oftentimes don't learn.

Matthew Henry says this about this section. He writes, a fire went out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men that offered incense while Aaron, who stood with them, was preserved alive. God is jealous of the honor of his own institutions and will not have them invaded.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. The censers are devoted and, as all devoted things, must be made serviceable to the glory of God. This covering of the altar would remind the children of Israel of this event, that others might hear and fear and do no more presumptuously.

They brought destruction on themselves, both in body and soul. Thus, all who break the law and neglect the gospel choose and love death. So this is really the problem with the children of Israel, that they're just not learning these lessons in the wilderness.

It's just a cycle of one thing after another, after another. What's the term that the Lord uses for them because of this? The children of Israel are what? Yeah, stiff-necked, right? Jim, you had your hand up.

Yeah, it says, get away from among this congregation that I may consume them instantly. Next part of that verse is, then they fell on their faces as Moses said to Aaron, take your censer and put it in the fire.

From the altar and lay in silence in it.

They constantly do that. They feared that God was gonna take their life.

And they had remorse for that,.

But because they keep repeating these things, and like you said, they haven't learned a thing. Maybe some did, but as a whole, they didn't. And as a consequence, they get caught. And they say, oh man, we did bad stuff.

And they fall on their faces and ask God to bring them to their senses sometimes, but that was in the Christian life. And even the unbelievers is part of that.

Yeah, Larry.

I was just gonna follow up about the remorse. Like Jim said, they got caught. Not remorse that they complained and was wrong, but they got caught. And how often do I sin and repent, but I do it again.

I'm not really repenting and confessing, but I'm not stopping.

Yeah, these lessons, they're not learning the lessons. They're stubborn, they're not listening. And I think the Israelites, they appear to be committed to their rebellion. The ground opening up, the fire devouring the rebels, this should have taught them a lesson.

It should have been a wake up call, but look at their response in Exodus 16, 41. Their response, it's not even that they did something wrong and we're sorry, and then they do something wrong again. I mean, that is happening, but it goes even beyond that because on the next day, it says all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron saying, you have killed the people of the Lord.

So they're still looking to blame Moses. They still seem to want to overthrow Moses. Did Moses kill the people of the Lord? No, God did, right? Yeah, Jim.

In my daily Bible reading, it comes to the point where they ask for a king and God selects Saul. But Saul is kind of those people that were, for all intent and purposes were unbelievers because he did, what did he do when Samuel told him, go to such and such a place,.

I can't remember the exact location, and I'll be there, seven days from now,.

I'll be there.

Samuel didn't show up for seven days. He was late getting there. So what did Saul do? He did his own thing.

Sure.

And then when Samuel got to him, he said, what have you done?

And Saul right away said, you know, I'm guilty.

But he wasn't guilty because he knew he'd sin. He was guilty because he'd get caught.

Sure.

Sure, so they blame Moses, you have killed the people of the Lord. Verse 42, now happened when the congregation had gathered against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tabernacle of meeting and suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared.

This is not good. This is not a good sign for them. So then it says, verse 43, Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of meeting and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, get away from this congregation that I may consume them in a moment.

This is what, the third time that the Lord has threatened to just wipe them off the face of the earth. He's threatening this again. So this is a really bad time. This is a low point in the history of the children of Israel.

The faithful Israelites definitely seem to be in the minority and just making application to the New Testament church, because we always try to do this, nothing new under the sun, right? Out of the 2 billion or so people on this earth that profess to be Christians, those who truly believe are the small minority.

Always have been the small minority, even in Israel, same thing. Those who are with Moses are the minority. Today, all one has to do is survey the churches and you're gonna find no shortage of people who all you have to do is read something from the Old Testament or read some story that Moses wrote in Genesis through Deuteronomy.

And there's people in Christian churches who get angry when certain parts of the Bible are taught, especially certain parts of the Old Testament. Because the faithful remnant is always the small flock.

It's always the small group. They were incensed at most. They were blaming, but Moses is the bad guy. There's people in churches who view Moses in these stories. This is terrible. Look at what Moses said.

Yes, Larry.

I think it was in 1880, D .L. Moody said that the ones that need to be reached for Christ, most of the time are the ones sitting in the pews. And I think in 1880, he approximated that 40 of the people within the church walls in the pews were not believers, but it was something they did every week.

Sure, sure. So when you, when I, I'll just use myself as an example. When I open the Bible and I read something and it's like, ooh, you know, that's maybe it's convicting or you see or perceive a problem.

I know the problem's with me and not with the word of God, but there's a lot of people who just point their finger at God.

Yeah, they want to blame Him for it.

Sure.

Over the past month or so on Wednesday night and in Sunday school, I've brought up several times the teaching or the idea of dispensationalism. And the whole idea there is that during any period of time in human history or during any dispensation, God will give man a test.

Man always fails that test. A judgment occurs as the result, but thankfully the Lord is merciful to those who trust Him by faith. Well, how does that apply here? The children of Israel were given a test.

They were given the law and how are they doing? How are they doing keeping God's law? Not very well. And we're seeing judgments come as a result of that. Well, the same thing is going on. It will happen in the church age.

The test for people in this dispensation is that all men everywhere are called to believe the gospel. And certainly if you're in a church, you're called to believe the gospel. So we're accountable now to Christ.

They were accountable to Moses and the law. Now we are accountable to Christ and the gospel. But again, all one has to do is look around at all the churches in New England. Just take New England for example.

It's the same thing that's happening. Departing from the truth, departing from the gospel. And now you have churches where it's common where they are openly advocating for sin. Churches just openly calling for rebellion against God.

Well, what are the children of Israel doing? That's exactly what they're doing. So it happens in every dispensation. God gives a test, man fails. And what does that prove? One thing, God's holy, man isn't.

God's grace is the only hope.

Isn't that called, in the Old Testament, isn't that called a progressive revelation? These tests, because now he's expanding the revelation that he's given to the people. And it's not that it's more difficult.

It's just that that's something that he needs to put out there so that they would grow.

Right, so in the first age of innocence, before the fall, man really didn't know a lot. But as time went on, God revealed more and more of himself. So this is a test, the majority, they're failing. Because it's talking about the whole congregation comes out to accuse Moses.

So again, making application, when the faithful church is raptured, who's gonna be left behind? The unfaithful church, the harlot church, which the book of Revelation says God will destroy, or uses the Antichrist to destroy the harlot church during the great tribulation.

So human history is just basically the same old story being repeated with different details. And it just proves that the path to eternal life is narrow and few there be that find it. Wait, somebody said that, didn't they?

Who was that?

Yeah, Jesus said that, didn't he? All right, so here in the book of Numbers, it says the whole congregation is against Moses and Aaron. Look at verse 46. So Moses said to Aaron, take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, put incense on it, and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them.

For the wrath has gone out from the Lord, the plague has begun. The good news is that God is merciful. He is not going to wipe out the nation. That's true. But he is going to punish them, and that's with this plague.

So who's stepping in to stop the plague? Usually it's Moses who is the one interceding, and he's still the one talking with God.

No, it's Aaron.

Yeah, Aaron now is the main character in these chapters. So Aaron steps in as a type of the savior. So yeah, Aaron is acting as the type of Christ. So Aaron, the Old Testament high priest is a picture of Jesus, the New Testament high priest.

In Aaron, verse 48, it says he stands between the dead and the living so that the plague was stopped. Okay, now this leads into chapter 17. So we're in chapter 17. Now this is a very short chapter, just 13 verses.

Now the Lord is going to vindicate Aaron because the rebellion is against God ultimately, but the people are complaining against who? Moses and Aaron. I think Moses was vindicated when Korah got swallowed up in the earth.

Now God is going to vindicate or whatever you want to call it, validate Aaron and his priesthood. It belongs to him.

Jim.

The first verse in 17, the Lord's covenants are saying, speak to the sons of Israel. In other locations, he says, speak to the people. So this was a specific group that came together to be a prior attack.

Okay.

You want to expand on that like this?

Well, no.

Okay, all right. Number 17, verse one says, and the Lord spoke to Moses. Doesn't seem like every chapter begins this way. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and get from them a rod from each father's house.

All their leaders, according to their father's houses, 12 rods, right? Each man's name on his rod. So what's the rod? Well, it's basically a staff. Like if you picture Moses, you always picture him a certain way, right?

He's holding his rod. He's holding, yeah, he's holding the staff. This is what Moses used to work miracles. Remember when the plagues of Egypt fell, he was using his rod to bring those plagues. He parted the Red Sea by the staff.

He used the staff. The staff is called the rod of God in the book of Exodus. So now each leader of the 12 tribes, each leader would have had his own staff. So each leader had to submit their staff for this experiment.

Look at verse four. Then you shall place them in the tabernacle of meeting before the testimony where I meet with you. So the testimony is just another term for what? What is the testimony? It's synonymous with the Ark of the Covenant, okay?

So the two tablets of stone, this is also referred to as the tablets of the testimony. So the two tablets of stone are where? In the Ark, right. And we've talked about this before that the Ark is basically God's throne here on earth.

And the most holy place is God's throne room. And this is where Moses would meet with God. So anytime it's talking about, and the Lord spoke to Moses, that means Moses is standing before the Ark because where is the Lord?

So we say, well, God is omnipresent. God is everywhere. Well, that's true. The spirit of God is everywhere, but God

For the exception of these instances.

Well, he's still everywhere, but there is a special sense where God says he dwells between the cherubim. So if you just picture the Ark of the Covenant and the two angels on either side of the mercy seat, above it, there would be the cloud.

That's where God was. And Moses would present himself before the Ark and talk with God before the testimony. So the rods were to be taken, placed before the Ark, before the testimony. And now the Lord was going to make a public display or a public declaration once and for all of who is the Lord's anointed.

We've talked about this term, the anointed. What is another term for anointed? The Lord's anointed is what?

What?

Set apart.

Set apart.

Dedicated.

Dedicated.

The messenger.

The anointed one is the Messiah. So the Hebrew word is Messiah. The Greek, it's the Christ. But who's the anointed one here?

Aaron.

Yeah, Aaron is the anointed of God here. God anointed him as the priest. Okay, and verse five says, and it shall be that the rod of the man whom I choose, God has already chosen. We already know who it is, but he's going to show everybody once and for all.

And it shall be that the rod of the man whom I choose will blossom. Thus, I will rid myself of the complaints of the children of Israel, which they make against you. So here's the thing about a rod or a staff.

Is this a living branch? No, this is a dead, dried out piece of wood, right? And yet out of Aaron's rod, Aaron being a type of Christ, out of this dead thing comes life. Okay, that's a very important thing to remember.

So the law served to condemn the children of Israel, but through the priesthood, through the sacrifices, which picture Christ, that's where they found life. Verse six, so Moses spoke to the children of Israel and each of their leaders gave him a rod apiece.

For each leader, according to their father's houses, 12 rods and the rod of Aaron was among their rods. And Moses placed the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness. Now, I'm not sure how much this matters, but there's some debate over how many rods are there.

Because you could kind of read this two ways, either it's 12 rods and Aaron's is among them, so that's 13, or it's 12 rods and Aaron's is among them and it's among them, so there's only 12.

But there are 12 tribes and that's where the leaders were coming from.

All right, so who says

Can't be set apart from those tribes.

Yeah, so who says there's 12 rods? Okay, who says there's 13? I say there's 13. All right, me and Eve will say there's 13. We're right and you guys are wrong. No, I'm just kidding. All right, does it really matter?

Maybe not, but how would you get the number though? Because we think of the 12 tribes of Israel, right?

But Aaron's not a tribe.

Aaron's not a tribe, but his name is written for the tribe of Levi. So there's the 12 tribes. Let's not forget in the book of Genesis when Jacob, before he died, he gave the double portion to his son, Joseph.

And Joseph, the tribe of Joseph then split, or not split, but they became two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. Now that worked out when they inherited the land, 12 tribes inherited the land. Levi didn't get any land.

Remember the beginning of the book of Numbers when they counted, that's why it's called Numbers because of the census. When they counted the tribes, Levi was not to be counted among them. So the 12

That was their portion.

Right, so you had the 12 tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, and I made 12, and then Levi was set apart. So I think there was the 12 staves plus Aaron for the tribe of Levi.

Well, you're making a case

Well, that's my story.

For the importance of whether it's important or not.

Yeah, well, I mean, there are 13 tribes, technically, if you wanna look at it that way. Well, what's the outcome? Why is this happening? What's the gathering the rods, what's this all about? Remember, Korah had sowed so much division among the Levites, it caused the whole tribe to be stirred up, to really get the whole congregation of Israel to question the validity of Aaron and his priesthood.

I remember the argument that Korah made, all of God's people are holy, right? So this idea that the priesthood only belongs to Aaron and his sons, well, that's not very inclusive, is it, that's too exclusive, that's too narrow.

Why can't all God's people be priests? Well, answer that question, why can't all the Levites be priests? Yeah, but why can't all the Levites be priests? Why can't the Reubenites be priests?

Because they stood between God and the people when Moses, when they were at Mount Sinai. And that's why God said there were special people, he was setting them aside to serve him.

You're saying because the Levites were the ones who stood with Moses in the Golden Calf incident. Okay, but why can't the Reubenites, why can't they be priesthood? Well, that's not fair. God, you're right, exactly, God said so.

Right, but yeah, that is, it is narrow, isn't it? And it's not even just Levi, it's just, well, it is, but it's okay that it's narrow.

Yeah, right.

Okay, so it's just Aaron and his sons. So think about the, this is important, here's why. Think about the symbolism here. If Aaron is a type of Christ, if Aaron is a picture of Christ, the symbolism is Jesus alone is the high priest.

Aaron alone is the Old Testament high priest, there's only one. Now in the New Testament, Jesus alone is the high priest. He is the one mediator between God and man. We talk about the exclusivity of Christ.

Well, that's not fair. How come all religions, how come Buddha and Muhammad and all these other religions can't be mediators? You know, it's kind of the same argument. Why doesn't God just have a wideness and just open it up to everybody?

Because all those leaders died and don't live again. Christ died and is still alive.

So Christ is the one mediator. And here's the thing, those who believe in Christ are the children, the children of God. So it's Aaron and his sons, and it's Christ and the children of God who believe.

So there's only one legitimate priesthood, one way to God. So this, I believe, speaks to the exclusivity of Christ and the gospel. All right, verse eight. Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses went into the tabernacle of witness and behold, the rod of Aaron of the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and had produced blossoms and yielded ripe almonds.

Then Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord to all the children of Israel, and they looked and each man took his rod. And the Lord said to Moses, bring Aaron's rod back before the testimony to be kept as a sign against the rebels that you may put their complaints away from me, lest they die.

Thus did Moses, just as the Lord had commanded him, so he did. So not only did the Lord cause the rod of Aaron to bud, what else did he do? So here's this dead piece of wood that brings forth life and it buds and it bore fruit.

It produced blossoms and then ripe almonds.

Right, almonds are not fruit technically, but it's producing fruit. From death comes life and produces, produces fruit. This reminds me of Isaiah 11, verse one, which says about Jesus, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

There's another passage in Isaiah, it talks about he's a branch out of dry ground. Right, so I think that's the tie in there. So according to Hebrews chapter nine, verse four, Aaron's rod, what did they do with Aaron's rod?

Where does it end up?

In the ark.

Inside the ark. So there's only a few items in the ark and they're all pictures of the people's rebellion. What are the items? There's three things in the ark.

The testimony of the Lord, which is the stone 10 commandments.

Okay, so the 10 commandments are in the ark.

The rod and the bread.

And the manna and the rod that budded. So the people broke the 10 commandments. The manna, remember we despise this manna. They grumbled and complained and despised the manna, which Jesus is the bread from heaven, which is symbolic of them despising Christ when he came.

So all of these items are a picture of their rebellion. They broke the 10 commandments, they grumbled against having to eat the manna, and this rod was a sign of how they rebelled against God's chosen leadership.

So inside of the ark was, this is the symbolism, inside the ark is all of their sin and rebellion. God is above the ark, dwelling between the cherubim. So God is holy. Here's the people's sin and rebellion.

What's in between? This is a picture of the gospel. What was in between was the mercy seat, where the blood, the atoning blood was applied. So this is the gospel in the Old Testament scriptures. God dwelling above, sin below, Christ in between.

So in conclusion, upon seeing the budding of Aaron's rod, the people realize, does it get through? No, because there's gonna be more rebellions in the future. But at least at this moment, they realize what they have done.

So now, instead of wanting to take the priesthood for themselves, now they express fear of even approaching the tabernacle. Before, they were ready to go and take it for themselves. Now, they don't even wanna go near the place.

So we'll close with verses 12 and 13. It says, so the children of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, surely we die, we perish, we all perish. Whoever even comes close, or whoever even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord must die.

Shall we, and this is their question, shall we all utterly die? Well, thankfully, because of Christ and the mercy seat, the answer is no.