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Numbers 17 · a question people ask

Hadn't chapter 16 already shown whom the LORD had chosen? Why another sign?

In the text

Chapter 16 had put the question plainly: "the man whom the LORD chooses, he shall be holy" (16:7), and fire "devoured the two hundred fifty men who offered the incense" (16:35). But the next day the whole congregation "complained against Moses and against Aaron" (16:41), saying, "You have killed the LORD’s people!" (16:41). They laid the deaths at Moses' and Aaron's door. This chapter answers that complaint: the LORD will make "the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against you, cease from me" (17:5). This time the sign is a rod laid up "before the LORD" (17:7) and looked at "On the next day" (17:8), each prince's rod beside Aaron's (17:6), and no one dies in the chapter. Afterwards "each man took his rod" (17:9), and Aaron's is kept so that the complaining may end, "that they not die" (17:10).

The verses

“put fire in them, and put incense on them before the LORD tomorrow. It shall be that the man whom the LORD chooses, he shall be holy. You have gone too far, you sons of Levi!””
Numbers 16:7 · World English Bible
“Fire came out from the LORD, and devoured the two hundred fifty men who offered the incense.”
Numbers 16:35 · World English Bible
“But on the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed the LORD’s people!””
Numbers 16:41 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Numbers 17

Numbers 17: The rod that budded

In Hebrew, the word for Aaron's rod is also the word for a tribe, and his name went on Levi's (17:3). By the next day it had "sprouted, budded, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds" (17:8), and it was kept "for a token against the children of rebellion… that they not die" (17:10).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions