Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

Edom’s Hostility, Aaron’s Death

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Edom’s Hostility, Aaron’s Death

Genre:

Track: 39

Dictation Name: RR181V39

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto that by thy grace and mercy, thou hast delivered us through Jesus Christ from the dominion of ungodly men, from the dominion of organizations, from the dominion of those who would rule over us as petty gods, and hast made us free men and women in Christ Jesus. Our God, how great and marvelous thou art. How great is our freedom in thee. Grant, O Lord, that we may be apostles of the freedom of Christ unto all nations, and unto all generations to the end of time, that they may know the saving power of our Lord, and that if the Son make us free, we are free indeed. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 20:14-29. Numbers 20. Edom’s Hostility, Aaron’s Death. Numbers 20, beginning with verse 14. “And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us: how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers: and when we cried unto the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border: let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king's high way, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders.

And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword. And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the high way: and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it: I will only, without doing anything else, go through on my feet. And he said, Thou shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a strong hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: wherefore Israel turned away from him. And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor: and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. And Moses did as the Lord commanded: and they went up into mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount. And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.”

In these verses, we see Moses attempting to gain permission to pass through the kingdom of Edom. He wanted to pass from the plains south of the Dead Sea to the plains of the Jordan across from Jericho. It was from this point that entry was later to be made into Canaan. Moses crossed a peaceful passage. Israel would stay in the king’s highway. It would not allow any livestock to stray into any fields or vineyards. If their sheep or cattle needed water, they would pay for it. If Edom did not want to sell any water, they would hurry through without it.

Moses also reminded Edom of two facts. First, as both knew, they were related people. Edom was descended from Esau, and Israel from Jacob, Esau’s younger brother. They were thus not rightfully enemies, but should have been friends. Second, Israel had been delivered from Egypt by the Angel of the Lord, so they came with God’s favor, but Edom always resented Israel’s priority. Edom, although without true faith, saw itself as God’s chosen people. Centuries later, Rome united Judah and Edom under an Edomite king; Herod. Edom was also called Edomia, and it’s a word meaning “red.” The forcible union of Judea and Edom, or Edomia, under Herod was deeply resented by most Jews but accepted by others. A heretical strain was introduced into the Jewish world. The faith of Edom was in fertility cults.

Earlier, in the days of the Maccabees, John Hyrcanus conquered all of Edom and required the forcible conversion of all its peoples to Judaism. In the War of 66-70 A.D., between Judah and Rome, the Edomites were regarded by Titus and the Romans as an important part of the Judean military forces. Edom had been merged into Judea, even though they represented two religiously alien strains.

Now some have held that the fondness of some radical Jews as the Bolcheviks for the color red is the survival of the Edomite heritage. It is at least important to remind ourselves that, over the centuries, there have been deep internal divisions within the ranks of those called Jews, that there have been groups totally at odds with each other who have, very, very often, rightly, regarded the others as not real Jews.

There is another factor here. The Edomites were descended from Israel, or Jacob’s older son, Esau, and they believed themselves to be the ones through whom the Messiah would come, if there was one. That was their feeling. We have an account of King Herod’s pretensions. Having helped with Christ’s crucifiction, very gladly, he felt ready to claim the Messiahship for himself, since all the people were stirred over the Messianic question. According to Acts 12:21-23, we read, “And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.” On other accounts we read that he was arrayed in garments of silver thread, so that in the sun, it glistened as though the sun itself was standing there on the balcony orating to the people. It was his way of saying he was the son of life, the messiah. His very painful death is also recorded by Josephus.

The strong part the Edomites played in the Jewish/Roman war was a part of their desire to take over Israel and become themselves the chosen people, in charge of the entire nation permanently. With this background, we can understand the response of the King of Edom. He did two things. First, he refused passage to Israel, and he did this as ungraciously as possible. Second, he sent out an army to the border to block the way. Now, the king’s highway that they wanted to pass over is referred to in Numbers 31:22 and again in Deuteronomy 2:27. According to a contemporary scholar, John Sturdy, this road ran from Damascus in Syria now, down through what is now called Jordan, or the country of Jordan, to the Gulf of Acaba. It is in Arabic, still called “The Road of the Rulers.” Centuries later, Emperor Trajan rebuilt it. Moses and Israel, at this time, chose not to fight. They chose instead to take a long route around Edom to Mt. Hor. Their purpose towards Edom was peaceful.

Well, the time had now come for Aaron to die. Aaron, we are told, shall be gathered unto his people. He would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land for his part in the sin at Meribah. All the same, his death, like Moses’ death later was an honorable one. The phrase “gathered unto his people,” or “gathered unto his fathers” is used here. It would be possible to talk for an entire hour on what that means in the Bible, and I have done so on occasion. It normally is used to describe the death of a godly man in his old age. It is an important term in the Bible. So, its basic meaning is that a reunion takes place with one’s ancestors in God’s kingdom. Its implication is of rest and victory. It is a term which essentially refers to life after death.

Then second, a minor meaning, not always the case, refers to burial in an ancestral burial ground. Over the centuries and even now, many families have had a burying ground to which family members are brought, and it has been used in that sense in this country. Aaron, Moses, and Aaron’s son, Eliazar went to the top of the mountain. Moses ritually stripped Aaron of his high priestly garments and put them on Eliazar. Sometime thereafter, Aaron died. He was buried there, and Moses and Eliazar returned to the camp. There was then a thirty day period of mourning. Now, this custom of thirty days of mourning was common in Christendom until recently for all great personages. It used to be in the last century, a mourning band was worn on the arm, and that still survived, to a degree, when I was a child. We still do have this sign of mourning, thirty days when a great and important personage in the country dies, when the flag is flown at half mast. All this comes out of the Bible.

Aaron died, but the priesthood did not die. God’s servants are office bearers who serve under God and for His purposes. Similarly, judges are not th4e law, even though many confuse themselves in their works with the law. They are like priests, God’s ministry of justice, so that ministry does not end with their death. Thus, priests, ministers, public officers, judges, and others must see themselves as no more, no more than God’s agents. They have no independent authority, and their office does not give them any special wisdom or superiority. They are to be agents of the Lord.

The comment of Joseph Parker on this chapter is superb. “We live then in the scheme of providence. Life is not atheistic. Our sufferings have an explanation. Our weakness is not an accident, but the outcome of a series of processes often beyond the line of imagination. The lesson is we should accept life solemnly, pass through all its processes circumspectly, do nothing at our bidding or for the gratification of our will or fancy, but should always say, ‘My God, thy will be done.’ Let no man take to be God for himself. Let him occupy his definite position as servant, errand bearer, worker in the vineyard, and let his spirit express itself substantially thus. ‘Lord, at thy bidding, I would go. At thy bidding, Lord, I would stay. Give me understanding of my time. Give me the noble Christly heart, and inspire me by thy holy spirit that I may be enabled so to succeed as to ripen into a harvest of satisfaction and gladness in the coming days. No man can live in that spirit without being in heaven as to all the substance and qualities of heaven’s meaning. That is what is meant by praying without ceasing, namely, living in the prayerful spirit, always being in touch with God, ever having God’s throne in view, God’s law at heart, God’s will, the inspiration and direction of life.”

It is worth noting that, according to Numbers 33:39, that Aaron was 123 years of age when he died. At that age, he walked up a mountain to his burial site. As with Moses later, his grave was to be known only to God, not to men generally. They were thus preserved to a silent dignity in death.

There is an oblique reference to Aaron, and to priests generally, in Hebrews 5:1-4. “For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” By his very weakness, Aaron was, we are told, a compassionate high priest. He was thus a type of Christ, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Henry H.P. Liddon, in the Family Churchman, April 27, 1887, calls attention to the quiet dignity of Aaron’s death, “Nothing is more noticeable in the account of Aaron’s death and his deliberate preparation for it. He did not let death come on him, he went to meet it. There was a two-fold motive in the act of Moses in stripped Aaron of his garments. First, it was to show that the office of the high priesthood did not depend on the life of any single man, and second, it reminded Aaron personally of the solemn truth of the utter solitariness of the {?}. The phrase of Moses, “Aaron was gathered to his people,” seems to point to a world in which the bygone generations of men still live, a world of the existence of which God’s anciet people were well-assured, though they knew much less of it than we.” That phrase means that our ancestors who were in Christ, whose names we don’t even know, we will be gathered unto them, and will be known by them and we will know them.

Well, some years had now passed. Numbers 33:38 tells us that Aaron’s death was in the fortieth year after the Exodus, in the first day of the fifth month. The older generation was disappearing as God cleared the way for the conquest of Canaan, not entirely so however, because two older men provided the leadership for the conquest; Joshua and Caleb. It was not the younger generation, but these two older men who led the people into Canaan and victory. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for this, thy word. We give thanks unto thee that we live in thy providence, that all things have an explanation, that there are no accidents, that all things have a purpose which though it is beyond our imagination, is a glorious one, and its purpose is that thy will be done, that we grow in grace in thee, that we be better prepared for the tasks to be accomplished here and for our responsibilities throughout all eternity. Our Father, great and marvelous are thy ways, and we thank thee. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] What was the rebellion Aaron . . .

[Rushdoony] What?

[Audience] What was the rebellion that Aaron committed at Meribah?

[Rushdoony] It was there that they were commanded to go and speak to the rock, and water would come out of it and provide for them, but they were impatient, rebellious, they were angry at God because of all that He had put them through, and God punished them for that. We often disguise our anger at God by being angry with people, so we take it out on those who are close to us, because we don’t dare take it out on God, and in a sense, it was anger against God, and God judged them. When I was a boy, and in those days the army still had a cavalry, and the saying was if the general had a fight with his wife, he took it out on the officers below him, who took it out on those below them, until it reached the sargent who took it out on the corporal, who took it out on the private, who took it out on the army mules, and that’s why army mules were so {?}. Well, this is the case here, you see? They were upset that God had put them through so much, and now again, these people, they had to put up with them, so their anger was expressed and God judged them for it. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] This is a little off the subject, but I was wondering if you could give a definition of a humanist, and the background to that questions, sometimes we refer to a humanist as those who ascribe to the tenets to the Humanist Manifestos. Sometimes I’ve heard the term used sort of for non-Christians in general, and sometimes somewhere in between there, I’m wondering if you could clarify it.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Humanism is defined for us in the Bible. It’s the world’s second oldest religion. It’s defined in Genesis 3:1-5, and what is the essence of it? It is submitting to the tempter who says, “Yea, hath God said?” in other words, doubt God’s word, and then, “Ye shall be as God.” Every man his own god, knowing, and the word in the Hebrew for knowing, has the connotation of determining. Determining for yourself what is good and evil. You are the ultimate judge, the arbiter, the determiner of everything. There are lots of humanists in the pulpit. They set themselves in judgment over God’s word, as to what you can believe and what you shouldn’t believe, and what is obsolete and what is myth, and so on. The humanist is defined for us in Genesis 3:1-5, and it’s the gospel of Satan. It makes man his own god. It denies that God is Lord over all.

[Audience] So the definition really is a very broad one in terms of all those who are in rebellion against God in any form them?

[Rushdoony] Yes, you cannot limit it to the Humanist Manifesto, because that’s, or either one of the Humanist Manifestos. They are excellent expressions of the Humanistic faith, but it existed long before, and it comes right out of Genesis 3:1-5, and it’s the tempter’s program. So, it’s the second oldest religion, and the most universal one. All forms other than a true and faithful biblical faith, are humanistic, in some form or other. So, all the non-Christian, non-biblical religions are humanistic. Yes?

[Audience] I can’t remember whether it’s in {?} where I read it, he was mentioning Genesis, said that Adam was the son of God. He had Jesus Christ as His only begotten son. It confuses me a little bit. Was Adam the son of God?

[Rushdoony] Not in a literal sense, but as a type of Christ. He was the first humanity created in God’s image. In that sense, he is called the son. So that, because he is created in God’s image, in terms of God’s communicable attributes, not His incommunicable attributes which are aspects of His divinity. Therefore, in that sense, by creating man in His image, He called him His son typically, just as He speaks of Israel, my son, I will call Israel my son out of Egypt, just as He speaks of us as His children. It’s by the adoption of grace, but the only begotten son, the only true son is Jesus Christ.

[Audience] {?} when we say, of course, that Jesus Christ was the second Adam. That made it difficult for me to . . .

[Rushdoony] Well, the first human race is the fallen humanity all around us. The second human race is the new human race created by Christ and all those who are born again in Him. So, we are born into the first human race as sons of Adam. Now, we are, by the adoption of grace, sons of God. We are born into the new humanity of Jesus Christ, and that’s why in 1 Corinthians 15, we are told that the second Adam is from above, from heaven, and that we are members of Him. So, the terminology in the days of the early church was if you were a Jew, you spoke of Jews and Gentiles as the two races. If you were a Greek, you spoke of Greeks and Barbarians. If you were a Roman, you spoke of Romans and non-Romans. You divided the world in two. Well, the Christians called themselves the third human race, because they had no part to do with the distinctions that other people made between them and us. Their distinction was that all those distinctions are obsolete. We are a new human race, that God has created miraculously, through Christ, so we are the sons of God and the daughters of God by the adoption of grace. Yes?

[Audience] You mentioned that Esau was the father of the Edomites. What people descended from Ishmael and where is the origin of the Arabic people?

[Rushdoony] The Arabic peoples claim descent and probably rightfully so from Ishmael, and therefore, they claim to be the children of Abraham, with a priority over the Jews. So, the religious issue is very much alive on that score, and the Koran claims to be the truer account of the chosen people, and therefore, they look to Abraham, the tombs of the patriarchs are to them holy places, and Jerusalem to them is to them a holy place as well as Mecca, and that’s why there is not only a political but an intensely religious tension between the Arabs and the Jews. Now, Ishmael was cast out for his sin. However, the evidence seems to indicate that Ishmael, although not his descendents, did return to the faith and that he and Isaac together buried their father, and you could not participate in the service in Antiquity if you were a faithless and unbelieving child. So, it indicated that Ishmael had come to the faith, but his descendents, of course, departed from it. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] This one is also off the subject somewhat, but Pat Robertson has just written a book entitled The New World Order, in which he outlines a number of trends and events that he feels is important for God’s people to understand. I’m wondering if you have read the book or if you have any comments on it?

[Rushdoony] I have not read the book. I have no comments on it. My one comment is that Pat Robertson, not too long ago with his wife, vacationed in the Riviera with an African leader who was his host and who has countless Christian in prison, and the money for the vacation came from Israel. Pat Robertson is really a foreign agent, so I regard his word as worthless.

[Audience] That’s a fairly strong statement. Could you elaborate? A foreign agent? From which country?

[Rushdoony] Well, immediately from an African country, and secondarily, but actually the money channeled through Israel. Any time you receive foreign funds from a state, technically you are to register as a foreign agent, and he has not done so. We don’t pay attention to the law. There are a great many people in Washington who are receiving money from all kinds of countries. They technically should be registered. At one time, this was a law strictly enforced. If you are receiving a country’s money, you are their mouthpiece. Moreover, Pat Robertson, at point after point, has been so obviously heretical, that I don’t see how anyone can pay attention to what he has to say. He believes in God’s unconditional love. That’s nonsense. That leads to saying if we sin, grace will abound, not that when we sin God cuts us off. So, we have a very, very ugly situation today in that this belief in unconditional love, God’s unconditional love for the Jew, for any Christian no matter what he does, is being propagated. The center of it is Bob Theme {?} in Houston, Texas, who has written that you can commit every sin the Bible, and a lot that nobody has yet thought of, and once you’ve said “yes” to Jesus, he’s bound to save you. In other words, it’s a one-way contract. That’s blasphemy. You can bind God and God cannot bind you with His word? That’s what the doctrine of unconditional love means. It is blasphemy, and I don’t think words are sufficiently strong for any Christian to express with regard to anyone who affirms unconditional love, because it’s a blank check to go and sin as you please.

[Audience] Man becomes God.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Man then controls God. Well, our time is virtually up. Let us conclude with prayer.

Oh Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee that thou art on the throne, and that all the plans of men or all the wealth of men, nor all the hopes of men can change a syllable of thy word or a syllable of thy purpose. Great and marvelous art thou, oh Lord, and thy ways shall prevail, and we rejoice that thou art God and thou alone. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.