Chapter Seventeen

The dry rod of Aaron that miraculously blossomed and bore fruit.

Numbers 17:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Numbers 17:2. Speak to the children of Israel and get from them one rod for each father’s house, from all the leaders according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods. Write the name of each man on his rod; Numbers 17:3. and write Aaron’s name on the rod of Levi, for there is one rod for the leader of each father’s house; Numbers 17:4. and lay them up in the tent of meeting before the ark of the covenant, where I meet you; Numbers 17:5. and the rod of the man whom I choose shall sprout; thus I will calm down the murmurings of the children of Israel against you. (Hebrew vv. 16–20). To strengthen further the faith of the people in the divine election of the high priest and to give a permanent tangible testimony of it, God performs a miracle with Aaron’s dry rod. Following the awesome sign of death to those who persisted in their unbelief, came a sign that pointed to the fullness of spiritual life granted to the chosen one and through the chosen one to all faithful sons of Israel.

Numbers 17:6. And Moses spoke to the children of Israel, and all their leaders gave him rods, one rod for each leader according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods, and Aaron’s rod was among the rods. The rods are taken as an expression of authority. Aaron’s rod from the house of Levi was the thirteenth.

Numbers 17:8. On the next day Moses went into the tent of the covenant, and Aaron’s rod from the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds, produced blossoms, and borne ripe almonds. According to the belief of the Church, Aaron’s sprouted rod prefigured: a) the seedless coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh from the virginal Mother of God Mary: “Aaron’s rod that sprouted forth” (we read in the Hymn to the Mother of God, Canticle 1, April 23), “which from the root of Jesse you prefigured, the holy One grown forth, O most pure one, brightness of the world, God incarnate” and so forth; b) the incorruptibility of Christ’s flesh: “for Emmanuel, having become the son of the nature of mortals, alone remained incorrupt; in himself alone he revealed the mystery of incorruptibility, dispassion, and immortality” (St. Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on the Book of Numbers, ch. XVII), becoming “a likeness of the future resurrection” of mankind (St. Epiphanius of Cyprus); c) the abundance of the reviving and strengthening grace of God in the Church of Christ: “The rod is received as an image of mystery, by its sprouting it prefigures the priest: not having borne fruit before the Church, now the tree of the cross has blossomed in might and strengthening” (Canticle 3, Canon to the Venerable Cross).

Numbers 17:10. And the Lord said to Moses: Put back Aaron’s rod before the ark of the covenant, for a memorial, as a sign for the rebels, so that you may put an end to their murmurings against me, lest they die. “Before the ark,” – just as the jar of manna (Exod 16:34).

Numbers 17:12. And the children of Israel said to Moses: Look, we are dying, we are lost, all of us are perishing! Numbers 17:13. Anyone who comes near to the dwelling of the Lord dies: are we all to perish? Aware of the truth of the divine election of their leaders, the people still could not free itself from a sense of dark despair at the sight of the clear futility of its unlawful desires. The following period of 38 years (40 years are counted from the departure from Ramesses) of wanderings, as a dark period of the dying out of the people by the awesome judgment of God’s righteousness, is passed over by the chronicler in almost complete silence. During this time the Israelites either moved as a whole from one oasis to another (like Bedouins) and dwelt there while provisions for the flocks lasted; or, having divided into groups, each group moved independently. It is possible that besides herding, certain groups of the people engaged in agriculture from time to time (see note to Gen 26). Moses, meanwhile, had to visit the various groups of the people with the tent at different times. The district of Negev, the gateway to the promised land, could have been the center that bound together the groups of the people.