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Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Fr. Stephen DeYoung teaches verse-by-verse on the podcast The Whole Counsel of God. Fr. Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and is an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Chapter 17 After this, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and get a rod from them. a rod from each of their father's houses, from all their rulers, according to their father's houses, 12 rods, write each man's name on his rod. You shall also write Aaron's name on the rod of Levi, for there is one rod that shall be given according to the tribe of their father's houses. Okay. So the rod, as we've talked about before, was the symbol of authority. It got that from shepherding and herding, which is what most of these people were doing on a nomadic basis but the rod is what you use to knock the sheep upside the head and get it back in line right it's what was used for discipline and the uh that's as opposed to the staff that was used that was sort of the symbol of care sort of the other side of authority so in psalm 23 you get your rod and your staff they come from me right both of them both sides of that authority But so the rod is the symbol of this sort of authority, the authority to render judgment, right, as a broader symbol. And so God says, get a rod from the leader of each tribe, right, the head man of each tribe. And for Levi, we're counting that as Aaron. Get a rod from them as a symbol of their authority. Put their name on it. Then you shall put them in the tabernacle of testimony before the ark of the testimony, where I will be known to you. so it shall be the man i choose his rod will blossom thus i will remove the murmurings of the children of israel which they murmur against you okay right so we're doing a third thing because they're probably out there right talking trash again you know before this blossoms again we're gonna give this sign right we're gonna put all 12 of these sticks so these are dead sticks like this one right here right um we're going to put them all in the most holy place in front of the ark of the covenant the place where god appears we're going to put them all there and the one who god wants to be the high priest that rod is going to bud it's going to blossom which since that's kind of impossible from an old dead carved whittled stick right this will be a miraculous sign.

Okay, so this isn't just like, oh, look, I see a little green sprout, right? We've got whole flowers blossoming. We've got ripe almonds that you can eat, right? So the whole thing, right? Sort of indisputable, right, growth. So fruit, we talked about fruit all the way back in Genesis 2, right? That fruit, because you don't have to harm the tree, it represents sort of nature and creation offering itself to humanity as food. So it's not just the blossoms are beautiful, but it's also nourishing. And this also says something about the nature of Aaron's authority. Authority is not an iron rod, right? the high priest has this is an authority that brings forth life its purpose and its goal is the life and the flourishing of the people this isn't about him exercising some kind of tyrannical authority this is about him bringing life to the people by serving god as the as the high priest so aaron's rod that's that budded gets brought up all the time in our hymns especially in matins so if you're here for matins you've heard it a lot but it gets brought up other places too and this is part of our understanding of how to read the bible so some people get confused because they have this idea that like a biblical text right this

This verse means something in particular, and, you know, if you're very holy, the Holy Spirit shows up and tells you what that is, right? And then that's the correct meaning, and all other meanings are incorrect, right? That's completely wrong. That's not how anything works, let alone in terms of texts. That's not how any text works, let alone the text of Scripture, right? And so we will see in different hymns and in different church fathers talking about Aaron's rod they budded, they will say it represents a whole bunch of different things, right? So they'll talk about it in terms of the Theotokos bearing Christ in that like the rod, right? The rod is wood that's kind of, right? It's been broken off of the tree and cut, right? And polished and everything. And so now it can't bring forth life anymore. she's a virgin. Her womb can't make a baby as a virgin womb, right? But does. The life of the world comes out of it. So that's a great comparison. It's also compared to Christ's cross. Some people, like Friedrich Nietzsche, want to say, well, that's just you Christians. Every time a stick of wood shows up in the Bible, you're like, oh, look, it's the cross, right? But no, this is happening at a deeper level. The cross is dead wood. I mean, not just because it's been cut and it's been polished down, but it's an instrument of death, right? It is the deadest kind of wood and was a representation of like an iron rod, the iron rod of Roman tyranny, right? And oppression and murder and torture. Yet, out of Christ's cross, what comes? New life, right? That is beautiful and feeds the people so again this is a perfectly appropriate comparison because the larger motif is god and priestly activity because christ dying on the cross is seen by the new testament as being priestly activity he's offering himself as a sacrifice brings forth life in the world out of death right a world that's full of death and sin and horror out of that god brings life through the priestly activity of the great high priest christ and christ priesthood in which human priests share right and so you get all of these comparisons all of which can be true we don't have to pick one as being the correct one. And there's a lot more. Those are just two of the most prominent ones that you hear the most, like in our hymnography. But it is this overall principle, right? So not only is this displaying that Aaron has this authority, it's a sign to

Israel of what that authority, and to the priests who are going to wield it, of what kind of authority that authority should be. Then Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord to all the children of Israel, and they looked and each man took his rod. The Lord then said to Moses, bring Aaron's rod back before the testimonies as assigned to the sons of the disobedient, and let their murmuring cease from before me lest they die. Thus did Moses as the Lord ordered him, so he did. Now again, God tells moses to take that rod and put it back in the most holy place so he's not saying here oh because when all the people see they're not going to see it right they just saw it but they're not going to see it right but it's going to be preserved there and who is going to see it the high priest and each generation is going to see it and be reminded of the authority and the responsibility that he's been given notice also it's put back there with the ark of the testimony erin's rod that budded is not inside the ark of the covenant this is one of my pet peeves as people always say like inside the ark of the covenant were the tablets and the jar of manna and erin's rod that budded but as we've been reading now the pot of manna is in the most holy place not in the ark it's in there with the ark it's not in the ark aaron's rod is in there with the ark it is not in the ark the tablets are in the ark we talked about that so the children of israel spoke to moses saying behold we are utterly destroyed we are ruined we are consumed whoever touches the tabernacle of the lord dies shall we utterly die why do we get this little epilogue they still don't get it what did they take away from this stay away from the tabernacle

but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right? So at least, right, they've got the fear of the Lord. At least they've got reverence. At least they know not to, you know, push as they've been pushing. And so now maybe they can make a beginning. They don't understand yet, right? But there's a glimmer of hope out there. That they may be on their way to understanding, even though they don't get it yet. And once again, I always feel the need to reiterate, this isn't so we can point back and laugh at them. This is so we can think about how much we're like them sometimes. I'm not going to take the time that we're required to do it, but I can think of a bunch of times in my life where God's tried to teach me something, and I've had to have repeated lessons. right because i didn't get it or i or i took the wrong message right you know where where god was trying to teach me something deeper and i learned something very superficial uh i won't go into the whole story for a variety of reasons but there was a time in my life as a very young man uh and a very stupid man i got into trouble for writing something down in a note that I passed to a girl being young and stupid and that note was found right there were a bunch of things God was trying to teach me from that episode and and the repercussions and the things that happened afterwards but at the time I was 16 at the time the mess that what I learned from it the message I took away from it was don't write things down because then they can't prove you said it right and so God had to teach me those things he was trying to teach me through that in other ways through other things that happened later in my life because I was young and I was stupid so the difference between me and these folks these folks stay away from the tabernacle is actually better than don't write things down stay away from the tabernacle was probably good advice for them don't write things down is just like i need to find ways to get away with this right i was actually more craven than them no they haven't they had three things before they got to that point and this was my my first one maybe we'll pretend um but right but all of us if we were i'm not going to do this obviously but all of us if we went around the room could probably come up with an example from our own life or two where you know I really should have learned this way back then but it took another 20 years or 10 years or five you know before

it got through my skull and so we see here sort of the patience of God right you know that even after those first two okay i'll give him a third one right and again and again and again and he never despite his sort of threats before moses and aaron intercede he's never really done with his people he never actually does abandon them he never actually does wipe them all out never actually does turn on them right he makes it clear that that's what probably should happen based on what they've done but he never does it it's chance after chance after chance after chance after let me try to teach you this way okay you don't get it how about this way okay you still don't get it how about this way and on and on right and that's how God is with us and I'm thankful every day that that is how God is with me because the alternative is that he would have given up on me at some point in the past as any human would have

listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole counsel of God Father Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com.