Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 16-18.

Shortly after the Israelites suffered for rebelling against the Lord by first refusing to enter the land of Canaan and then, after God told them to not do so, attempting invade, a Levite rose up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron.  Korah and some other leaders attempted to start a populist rebellion against Moses.  It appears from Moses’ response that the rebellion was primarily among Levites, with support from prominent Israelites from other tribes.  Whenever I read this passage I always struggle to figure out what Korah got wrong, because, as a general rule, I believe that leaders should have the support of those they lead for the decisions which they make.  However, despite claiming to represent the whole community, it appears that Korah and his associates only had the support of 250 people.  So, Korah’s rebellion appears to have been engineered by a small group of people who thought they could use the discontent over God’s rejection of them going into Canaan to overthrow Moses.  They claimed that the whole community was holy and thus could hear the word of God and implied that they had the support of the whole community to remove Moses from his leadership role.  But they failed to consult God, or to actually gain the support of the majority.  If you believe that the leaders of God’s people are mistaken, there are several steps you must take.  The first is to pray to God for His guidance and listen to what He tells you.  Second, speak with the leaders to discover whether they have answers to your objections.  Finally, reach out to people to see if they actually support you over the current leaders.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 16-18.

My first thought when reading this was that we had just had the negative consequences of those who refused to follow Moses’ direction and now, here we have some other people challenging his authority?  Then I thought about the repeated times in my lifetime when people have seen an idea fail, badly, and as soon as the dust settles begin advocating for it again.  But that, in and of itself, is not what this passage is about.  So, I decided to look at what was wrong with what Korah and his allies wanted.  Korah claims to be advocating on behalf of the entire people of Israel.  He claims that he wants to establish a system where all of the people are equal before God, as opposed to Moses “lording it” over them.  However, if we look at his group, we see people who have risen to positions of minor power uniting to overthrow Moses in the name of “the people” and seize power for themselves.  We see this pattern repeated time and again throughout history: leaders arise who claim to be opposing the “tyrannical” government on behalf of the people, but really only seek power for themselves.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 16-18.

This is my third attempt at starting to write today’s blog.  Yesterday, I wrote about the danger of taking a position just because the majority of the “experts” on the subject take that position.  And then trying to silence those experts who argue against that position without listening to their arguments.  Today’s passage contains a warning about rebelling against God’s chosen leader(s).  Korah attempted to usurp Moses’ authority by claiming that all people were equal (and therefore the people should follow him instead of following Moses).  Dathan and Abiram refused to make their case against Moses before the people, arguing that Moses had no authority to demand that they do so.   In a way, this rebellion was much the same as the one I discussed yesterday.  Those in the wrong appealed to emotions and feelings, refusing to make their case with reason and logic (although in today’s case, they refused to stand before God and the people and ask God to make His will known between them and Moses).

I would like to expand on this by taking note that I often seek to see if there are natural explanations for miraculous happenings in the Bible (not that I do not believe in miracles, merely that God often chooses to use the laws of nature to display His power).  In this case, I often wonder if this rebellion started with Moses telling those involved not to camp on the area which they chose, and their rebellion initially resulting from their belief that he had no right to tell them where to camp.  Moses had spent about 40 years as a shepherd in the Sinai region and I could easily see him knowing that the ground upon which they camped only appeared to be stable, that it would collapse under the weight of their numbers and goods after a short period of time.  When Moses told them to move their camp they got angry because, being a busy man, he did not take to time to explain and show them why it was not safe to camp there.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 16-18.

Yesterday I looked at the problem with relying on experts.  Today, we see the opposite problem, rebelling against God’s chosen leaders.  Korah and his allies started from a valid premise: all of God’s people are equal.  But they took it too far.  They used this premise to argue that Moses should not be the leader.  So, where does it become obvious that they have it wrong?  Korah was not arguing that there should not be a leader.  He was arguing that HE should be the leader in Moses’ place.  Further, he was not arguing this on the basis of how he would be better than Moses.  He was arguing that Moses had failed to deliver on his promises.  So, Korah argued that he should be leader because Moses was no better than anyone else and had failed.  Korah did not offer an alternative plan of action, merely dissatisfaction with Moses’ leadership.  Selecting a leader because he is not the other guy always ends badly.

I want to say that both yesterday and today I started out with a clear idea of what I wanted to write and how it would come out.  Neither came out clearly where I planned for them to.