THESE are wonderful words, thrilling words. What must have been their effect upon the man to whom they were spoken, accustomed tho he had become to the voice of force and power which had uttered them!
He had heard that voice amid scenes of glory and splendor unimaginable, amid displays of majesty and might inconceivable.
He had seen its utterances followed by exhibitions of sorrow overwhelming, of suffering intense, of death most frightful.
In the wilderness of Paran he had heard its decisive tones after strange displays of human rebellion, after rash outbreak against authority omnipotent — on the part of disappointed and frenzied Israel.
These remarkable words were spoken to Aaron the priest by Jehovah Himself (Num. 18:20), at Kadesh, near the western edge of the wilderness of Zin, from which point the twelve representatives of Israel were bidden to pass through the entire length of the land, which, centuries before, God had promised to Abraham, and ascertain its condition, the character of its inhabitants, and bring back report thereof.
God did not make this remarkable statement to Aaron because he had been always a faultless man, for twice especially had he been a leading party to great wrong in the camp of Israel.
Every observant reader of the Bible Band has felt a thrill of amazement at Aaron’s daring act recorded in Exodus 32 while that uneasy, just emancipated host lay encamped at foot of Sinai.
There, in the long, mysterious absence of Moses, listening to God, far up in the grand, historic mountain, Aaron became a ready helper to the impatient, wayward multitude in its enormous act of idolatry.
Reader, tarry here a moment. By their own feeble human skill they manufactured out of inert metal an image, a leader, which should take the place before them of the Creator of the universe, their Creator, and who should lead them on through deserts drear and enemies mighty, to the fair land they were eager to enter! They made a figure which was to guide, clothe, nourish, and finally establish them amid the hills and vales where their father Abraham had walked, a prince rich and powerful.
That entire chapter, including Aaron’s amazing deed and its heartrending result, puts before us a piece of tragedy astonishing,—tragedy evoking deepest thought, teaching gravest lessons, publishing most solemn warnings.
Again, Aaron, influenced possibly by Miriam — he seems to have been a man who was easily influenced, and, sometimes, not to safe, right deeds — spoke against Moses, their brother, these words: “Hath the Lord spoken only by Moses? hath He not spoken by us also?” Mark the quick, startling result, “The Lord heard it!”
Then followed suddenly an awe-inspiring scene. From the door of the tabernacle was heard the voice of the great Lawgiver saying to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, in tones impossible to resist, “Come out ye three into the tabernacle of the congregation.”
Let us not fail to note the strong, practical teaching of this twelfth chapter of Numbers. It contains a lesson for a lifetime. Therein we can see the mind of the Lord touching a deed of which we ourselves have been many times guilty, never thinking that the Lord hears.
But nineteen years after the last incident, during which years Aaron had served the children of Israel with conspicuous ability and fidelity as priest of the most high God, we hear the Lord saying to him, “Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them: I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.”
Probably this conclusive statement came unexpectedly to him, who, for years now, had served before the Lord and the people in holy things. In spirit and in life he was a different man from the Aaron who broke distinctly one of the most important commandments of God, notwithstanding he had been personally upon great Sinai — with8Moses, Nadab, and Abihu — and had seen the God of Israel.
He had now been disciplined by great trials. He had seen two of his sons, Nadab and Abihu, perish instantly for placing unhallowed fire upon the altar of incense, an act forbidden explicitly by the divine One.
Because of wrong-doing in which he himself had fully shared, Aaron must have sorrowed deeply over his beloved sister, when smitten extremely — made “white as snow” — with leprosy, a disease imperiling the life of all who touched her.
Nevertheless, after all His servant’s lapses from rectitude, God, ever ready to forgive, ever mindful of the sacred service the tested man had rendered, ever mindful of the fact that all possession had been refused him in fruitful Canaan, for which, during the saddening years since the triumphant outcome from Egypt, Aaron must sometimes have yearned intensely, now enriched him supremely by declaring Himself his part, his inheritance.
Aaron was not permitted to even see his fathers’ land. Because of another very serious error, wherein this time his great brother, marvelous for might of mind and spirit, himself shared (Num. 20: 8-11), God bade Aaron, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel left Egypt, to go up into Mount Hor, on the western edge of the land of Edom, and die there. Num. 20:23-28. It was a sad ending of a distinguished life.
But, in comparison with having the Creator of sun, moon, and myriad worlds for an inheritance, what was Canaan, with its flashing streams, green hills, lovely vales, luscious fruits, and radiant flowers, tho Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had walked therein?
To-day the same forgiving Lord who exalted Aaron to inheritance in Himself, is the inheritance eternal of every regenerated mortal who, walking by faith and consecration of life, is striving to enter the “strait gate.”
