Numbers chapter 16

After reading chapter 16:

*Now we read about an uprising in the camp. A Levite, some Reubenites, and 250 community leaders charge Moses with being too big for his britches. Moses tells them they are the ones that have gone too far and God will prove it by making clear who is holy and who isn't. The men complain of being treated like slaves by Moses. Moses wants to know what the Levites have to complain about, don't they get special important work to do? Then Moses got angry and told God not to accept their offering. Like the king of the universe takes orders? Well, apparently he does.

*The dissidents are told to meet in front of the tabernacle the next morning with censers of burning  incense. They did, and God told Moses and Aaron to get out of the way because he was going to destroy the 250 mutineers. Moses and Aaron made a token protest then told the people who weren't involved to stay way back.

*Then Moses speechified about how if the men died a natural death, that would mean Yahweh had not sent Moses to take them out of Egypt and Moses was a liar. But, if a weird new phenomenon happened, like the earth splitting open and swallowing the men and their belongings,  that would mean God did send Moses. Lo, and behold, guess what happened! The ground split opened and swallowed Korah the Levite, his friends, and all their belongings,  alive. The 250 community leaders were then blasted by fire from God.

* According to Yahweh's instructions, the men's censors were salvaged from their charred remains, beaten into sheets, and used to overlay the altar. This was supposed to serve as a reminder to the Israelites that no one except Aaron and his sons should bring incense befor the lord, even though Moses was the one that told those 250 guys to bring the incense in the first place.

*More people became very unhappy with Moses and Aaron because of the deaths. Who can blame them? A group gathered in front of the tabernacle  again. God threatened to put an end to these people as well. Moses told Aaron to hurry up and put incense and coals in his censor then go stand in the midst of the people to make atonement for them. Apparently a plague had already begun to hit them. Aaron stood between the living and those who had died from the plague and managed to stop the plague with sheer willpower and incense. Even so, 14,700 people died, another nice round number for the book of Numbers. Then Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance to the tabernacle.

*So, this chapter makes it very clear that Moses is Yahweh's right hand man and whatever he says goes, or else. I wonder how many nightmares it gave the young children who heard it read for the first time? Did it instill a lifelong determination never to get on Yahweh's bad side by disregarding Moses's words? Also, exactly what was this atonement thing Aaron did to stop the plague? What kind of plague starts and stops that quickly? Did you notice that the digits in 250 add up to seven and the digits in 14,700 add up to twelve? Coincidence? Plus, that weird new phenomenon sounds  a lot like an earthquake. I don't know about you, but I'm a little tired of this Yahweh and his heavy handed ways.