The Emancipation of Massachusetts. Adams Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ in such a spot was preposterous. Meanwhile Moses absorbed all the offices of honor and profit for his family. Aaron and his descendants monopolized the priesthood, and this was a bitter grievance to other equally ambitious Levites. In short, the Mosaic leadership was vulnerable on every hand. Attack on Moses was, therefore, inevitable, and it came from Korah, who was leader of the opposition.

      Korah was a cousin of Moses, and one of the ablest and most influential men in the camp, to whom Dathan and Abiram and “two hundred and fifty” princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown, joined themselves. “And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift you up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?”

      Koran’s grievance was that he had been, although a Levite, excluded from the priesthood in favor of the demands of Aaron and his sons.

      “And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face.”

      And yet something had to be done. Moses faced an extreme danger. His life hung upon the issue. As between him and Korah he had to demonstrate which was the better sorcerer or magician, and he could only do this by challenging Korah to the test of the ordeal: the familiar test of the second clause of the code of Hammurabi; “If the holy river makes that man to be innocent, and has saved him, he who laid the spell upon him shall be put to death. He who plunged into the holy river shall take to himself the house of him who wove the spell upon him.” [Footnote: Code of Laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon. Translated by C. H. W. Johns, M.A., Section 2.] And so with Elijah, to whom Ahaziah sent a captain of fifty to arrest him. And Elijah said to the captain of fifty, “If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.” [Footnote: 2 Kings I, 10.]

      In a word, the ordeal was the common form of test by which the enchanter, the sorcerer, or the magician always was expected to prove himself. Moses already had tried the test by fire at least once, and probably oftener. So now Moses reproached Korah because he was jealous of Aaron; “and what is Aaron, that ye murmur against him?… This do; Take you censers, Korah, and all his company; and put fire therein, and put incense in them before the Lord to-morrow; and … whom the Lord doth choose, he shall be holy: ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi.”

      But it was not only about the priesthood that Moses had trouble on his hands. He had undertaken, with the help of the Lord, to lead the Israelites through the wilderness. But at every step of the way his incompetence became more manifest. Even there, at that very camp of Kadesh, there was no water, and all the people clamored. And, therefore, Dathan and Abiram taunted him with failure, and with his injustice to those who served him. And Moses had no reply, except that he denied having abused his power.

      “And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab: which said, We will not come up:

      “Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us?

      “Moreover, thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards: wilt thou put out the eyes of these men [probably alluding to the “spies”]? We will not come up.”

      This was evidently an exceedingly sore spot. Moses had boasted that, because the “spies” had rendered to the congregation what they believed to be a true report instead of such a report as he had expected, the “Lord” had destroyed them by the plague. And it is pretty evident that the congregation believed him. It could hardly have been by pure accident that out of twelve men, the ten who had offended Moses should have died by the plague, and the other two alone should have escaped. Moses assumed to have the power of destroying whom he pleased by the pestilence through prayer to the “Lord,” and he, indeed, probably had the power, in such a spot as an ancient Jewish Nomad camp, not indeed by prayer, but by the very human means of communicating so virulent a poison as the plague: means which he very well understood.

      Therefore it is not astonishing that this insinuation should have stung Moses to the quick.

      “And Moses was very wroth, and said unto the Lord, Respect not thou their offering: I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them.”

      Then Moses turned to Korah, “Be thou and all thy company before the Lord, thou, and they, and Aaron, to-morrow:

      “And take every man his censer, and put incense in them, and bring ye before the Lord every man his censer, two hundred and fifty censers.”

      And Korah, on the morrow, gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle. And the “Lord” then as usual intervened and advised Moses to “separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.” And Moses did so. That is to say, he made an effort to divide the opposition, who, when united, he seems to have appreciated, were too strong for him.

      What happened next is not known. That Moses partially succeeded in his attempt at division is admitted, for he persuaded Dathan and Abiram and their following to “depart … from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins.”

      Exactly what occurred after this is unknown. The chronicle, of course, avers that “the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.” But it could not have been this or anything like it, for the descendants of Korah, many generations after, were still doing service in the Temple, and at the time of the miracle the spectators were not intimidated by the sight, although all “Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.

      “And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.”

      Notwithstanding all which, the congregation next day were as hostile and as threatening as ever.

      “On the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord....

      “And they fell upon their faces.”

      In this crisis of his fate, when it seemed that nothing could save Moses from a conflict with the mass of his followers, who had renounced him, Moses showed that audacity and fertility of resource, which had hitherto enabled him, and was destined until his death to enable him, to maintain his position, at least as a prophet, among the Jewish people.

      The plague was always the most dreaded of visitations among the ancient Jews: far more terrible than war. It was already working havoc in the camp, as the death of the “spies” shows us. Moses always asserted his ability to control it, and at this instant, when, apparently, he and Aaron were lying on their faces before the angry people, he conceived the idea that he would put his theurgetic powers to the proof. Suddenly he called to Aaron to “take a censer and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun.”

      “And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: … and made an atonement for the people.

      “And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.

      “Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah.”

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