Numbers 16:35-40

16:35 Then a fire 1  went out from the Lord and devoured the 250 men who offered incense.

The Atonement for the Rebellion

16:36 (17:1) 2  The Lord spoke to Moses: 16:37 “Tell 3  Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to pick up 4  the censers out of the flame, for they are holy, and then scatter the coals of fire 5  at a distance. 16:38 As for the censers of these men who sinned at the cost of their lives, 6  they must be made 7  into hammered sheets for covering the altar, because they presented them before the Lord and sanctified them. They will become a sign to the Israelites.” 16:39 So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers presented by those who had been burned up, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar. 16:40 It was a memorial for the Israelites, that no outsider who is not a descendant of 8  Aaron should approach to burn incense before the Lord, that he might not become like Korah and his company – just as the Lord had spoken by the authority 9  of Moses.

Numbers 18:7

18:7 But you and your sons with you are responsible for your priestly duties, for everything at the altar and within the curtain. And you must serve. I give you the priesthood as a gift for service; but the unauthorized person who approaches must be put to death.”

1 tn For a discussion of the fire of the Lord, see J. C. H. Laughlin, “The Strange Fire of Nadab and Abihu,” JBL 95 (1976): 559-65.

2 sn Beginning with 16:36, the verse numbers through 17:13 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 16:36 ET = 17:1 HT, 16:37 ET = 17:2 HT, 17:1 ET = 17:16 HT, etc., through 17:13 ET = 17:28 HT. With 18:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same. But in the English chap. 17 there are two parts: Aaron’s rod budding (1-9), and the rod preserved as a memorial (10-13). Both sections begin with the same formula.

3 tn Heb “say to.”

4 tn The verb is the jussive with a vav (ו) coming after the imperative; it may be subordinated to form a purpose clause (“that he may pick up”) or the object of the imperative.

5 tn The Hebrew text just has “fire,” but it would be hard to conceive of this action apart from the idea of coals of fire.

6 tn The expression is “in/by/against their life.” That they sinned against their life means that they brought ruin to themselves.

7 tn The form is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. But there is no expressed subject for “and they shall make them,” and so it may be treated as a passive (“they shall [must] be made”).

8 tn Heb “from the seed of.”

9 tn Heb “hand.”