The main point is to bring a grain and wine offering with your animals, and to have one law for Israelites or foreigners who want to sacrifice. Sacrifices for unintentional sins are reviewed. High-handed sins are different; one happens (gathering sticks to make a fire on the Sabbath) and God has him executed. To punctuate the point, God has them sew tassels on their clothes to remember God's Law.
Korah, Dathan and Abiram gather a faction opposed to the leadership of Moses. They refuse the test Moses proposes and won't respond to his summons. They sway the people, but when Moses warns that God will destroy any who stand with them, the people move away from them. God makes the earth swallow them up and they and all their families die. The censers they were using are smelted and hammered as a cover for the altar, as an enduring warning to Israel: only Aaronic priests are to offer incense to God.
The NEXT DAY the people complain that Moses killed them! God begins a plague, which is stopped when Aaron offers incense out among the people.
How this is about Jesus
- Jesus offers bread and wine to God, and leads us to do so, as an enduring sacrifice of remembrance for Christ's work in fulfilling all sacrifice for atonement.
- Jesus kept every commandment of God and entered the Promised Land of God's Rest first, making a way for us to go in.
- Though the priests rejected Him, Jesus never rebelled against them or reviled them in any way. He rebuked and exposed their sins, but was not a Korah/Dathan/Abiram.
Application
- Before we can enter the promised land, we must worship and live rightly, trusting the work of Christ to bring us in.
- We are quick to complain or get envious when God calls some to more visible and prominent service than we have.
- We accuse God of wrongdoing when He punishes His people for their rebellion against God!
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