Commentary - Numbers 17:12-13

Bird's-eye view

In these closing verses of Numbers 17, we are confronted with the raw, terrified reaction of the Israelite congregation to a direct and undeniable display of God’s sovereign choice. This is not a detached theological observation on their part; it is a visceral cry of despair wrung from the hearts of a people who have just witnessed divine judgment in the form of plague and earthly consumption, followed by the miraculous confirmation of Aaron’s priesthood through his budding rod. The people are not wrong in their assessment. They have come face to face with the unvarnished reality of God’s holiness, and they rightly conclude that unmediated access to such a God means certain death. Their cry, “Behold, we are perishing,” is the necessary and proper conclusion for any sinful man who stands before a holy God without a mediator. This moment of corporate terror serves as a crucial pivot in the narrative, highlighting the absolute necessity of the very priesthood they had just rebelled against. It is a foundational lesson on the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, and it sets the stage for the detailed instructions in the subsequent chapter about the duties of the priests and Levites, who are to stand in the gap between a holy God and a sinful people.

The passage is a stark reminder that the Old Covenant economy was designed to teach the profound distance between God and man created by sin. The tabernacle, God's dwelling place, was not a community center but a place of terrifying glory. To approach it wrongly was to die. The people’s despair is the logical end of all man-centered religion. When we try to approach God on our own terms, based on our own perceived righteousness or democratic notions of equality, the end result is not enlightenment but annihilation. This terror is not an end in itself, but is meant to drive the people to the mediator God Himself has appointed. It is a cry that ultimately finds its only true answer not in Aaron, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, the great High Priest who alone provides safe passage into the presence of the consuming fire who is our God.

Outline

Context In Numbers

This passage comes as the capstone to a series of rebellions and subsequent judgments. The central event is the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in chapter 16, where leaders from Reuben and Levi challenge the unique authority of Moses and Aaron. Their complaint was essentially egalitarian: "all the congregation is holy, every one of them." God's response was swift and terrifying. The earth swallowed the Reubenite rebels, and fire from Yahweh consumed the 250 Levites offering incense. When the congregation then grumbled against Moses and Aaron for this, a plague broke out, killing another 14,700 people until Aaron, at Moses' command, made atonement. Chapter 17 is God's definitive answer to this challenge. The test of the twelve rods is proposed, and Aaron's rod for the tribe of Levi not only buds, but blossoms and produces ripe almonds overnight. This is God's miraculous seal of approval on Aaron's exclusive priestly role. The people's cry in our text is their direct response to seeing this rod placed back before the testimony. They have seen rebellion judged, grumbling judged, and now they have seen God’s choice supernaturally vindicated. The cumulative weight of these events has crushed their pride and left them with one overwhelming conclusion: God is holy, we are not, and proximity to Him is fatal.

Key Issues

The Beginning of Wisdom

Modern evangelicals are often squeamish about the fear of the Lord. We have domesticated God, turning the consuming fire of Hebrews 12 into a cozy campfire for our weekend retreats. We are told to think of fear only in the milquetoast sense of "reverence" or "respect," as though we were talking about a kindly but firm grandfather. This passage in Numbers gives the lie to all such sentimentalism. The Israelites are not feeling "reverence;" they are feeling stark, bowel-loosening terror. And in this, they are wiser than we are.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 9:10). It is the foundational, bedrock apprehension of reality. God is an infinite, holy, sovereign Creator, and we are finite, sinful, rebellious creatures. The distance between us is absolute. To see Him as He is, without a mediator, is to be undone, just as Isaiah was undone in the temple (Isa 6:5). The Israelites have just been given an object lesson in this reality. They saw the ground open up. They saw fire fall from heaven. They saw a plague sweep through the camp. Now they see a dead stick burst into life. They are finally connecting the dots. Their theology has been corrected by catastrophe. This terror is not a sign of spiritual failure but of spiritual awakening. It is the necessary starting point for any true understanding of the gospel. You cannot appreciate the good news of a mediator until you have first grasped the bad news of your own condition before a holy God. Their cry of despair is the first rung on the ladder of salvation.

Verse by Verse Commentary

12 Then the sons of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, “Behold, we are breathing our last breath, we are perishing, we are all perishing!

The people come to Moses, their divinely appointed leader whom they had so recently maligned, and they unload their terror. The language is emphatic and repetitive. The Hebrew verbs for "breathing our last" (gava) and "perishing" (abad) convey a sense of finality, of being utterly undone. This is not a complaint or a grumble; it is a confession. They are not blaming Moses or God here; they are stating a fact about their own condition. "Behold, we are perishing." Look at us. We are dead men walking. This is the cry of a man who has looked over the precipice of hell and has no illusions about his ability to fly. They have moved from the arrogant presumption that "all the congregation is holy" to the terrified realization that all the congregation is dying. This is a massive spiritual improvement. They have finally learned the lesson that their sin, when brought into the vicinity of God's holiness, is a volatile and explosive compound.

13 Everyone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of Yahweh, must die. Are we to breathe our utter last?”

Here they identify the precise source of their terror. It is proximity to God. It is the tabernacle, the place where Yahweh has condescended to dwell among them, that has become the epicenter of death. Anyone who "comes near" dies. The repetition of the phrase "who comes near" emphasizes their fixation on this point. They had wanted to get near. Korah and his company wanted to offer incense, the pinnacle of priestly nearness. Now they see that the very thing they coveted is the thing that will kill them. Their desire for unmediated, unauthorized access was a suicidal impulse. This is a correct theological deduction based on the evidence God had provided. To approach the holy God on your own terms is to die.

The final question, "Are we to breathe our utter last?" or "Are we all to perish?" is the logical conclusion of their newfound premise. If proximity to God means death, and God has come to dwell in our midst, then is not a slow, grinding extinction our only possible future? It is a question of profound despair, but it is also the question that the entire sacrificial system, and the priesthood itself, was designed to answer. The unspoken answer is "Yes, you would all perish, unless..." Unless God Himself provides a way. Unless God appoints a mediator. Unless God provides a substitute. Their question, born of terror, hangs in the air, creating the perfect dramatic tension for God to reveal the gracious function of the Aaronic priesthood in the next chapter. They have been driven by the law and by judgment to the very edge of the abyss, which is precisely where they need to be to hear the good news of the gospel.

Application

We live in an age that despises boundaries, distinctions, and authority. The spirit of Korah is alive and well, whispering in our ears that every man is his own priest, that all opinions are equally valid, and that God, if He exists at all, must certainly grade on a curve. The modern church has too often capitulated to this spirit, preaching a gospel without judgment, a savior without wrath, and a God without holiness. We invite people to "come as you are" without telling them that to come as you are into the presence of the living God is to be consumed.

This passage from Numbers is a strong dose of smelling salts for our drowsy souls. It reminds us that our God is a consuming fire. The proper response to an unmediated vision of His glory is not a sentimental feeling but abject terror. We must recover this biblical fear of God. Not a craven, slavish fear, but a clear-eyed recognition of who He is and who we are. It is this fear that drives us to Christ. We do not saunter up to the throne of grace; we flee to it as our only refuge from the storm of God's righteous judgment.

The Israelites cried out in despair because they saw the tabernacle and knew they could not approach. We, on the other hand, have been given a great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who has torn the veil for us. Through His blood, we have a "new and living way" into the Holy of Holies (Heb 10:19-20). But we must never forget what it cost to open that way. We must never treat the presence of God as a casual thing. The terror of the Israelites should cultivate in us a profound and grateful awe. They despaired because they had only an Aaron. We rejoice because we have a Jesus, a better priest who not only stands between us and the fire, but who absorbed the fire for us on the cross. Their cry, "Are we all to perish?" has been answered once for all at Calvary. The answer is no, because He perished for us.