את מחתות החטאים האלה בנפשותם, “the fire-pans of these people who sinned at the cost of their lives.” The reason the Torah added the word “against their souls” was to reinforce the point that they forfeited the lives of their souls in the hereafter.

ולא יהיה כקרח וכעדתו, “and so that they not become like Korach and his congregation.” Our sages in Sanhedrin 110 derive from this verse that if one participates in and reinforces a quarrel one is guilty of infringing on a negative commandment. The meaning of the whole verse is: “one should not become like Korach and his congregation who had been swallowed by the earth and had been burned but one should prefer to be afflicted with tzoraat.” This is an allusion to people who merely quarrel against the “exclusive hereditary nature of the priesthood” such as King Uzziah who arrogated to himself the privilege reserved for priests. He was punished by becoming a צרוע for the remainder of his days (Chronicles II 26,21). He did not die and did not forfeit his afterlife. [I believe the author uses the words: “a negative commandment” as an example of something not carrying the death penalty. Korach did not merely quarrel but made a “federal case” out of his complaint. Hence his special punishment. Ed.]

וילונו כל עדת בני ישראל, “The entire community of the Children of Israel complained.” Seeing that already two different acts of retribution had occurred (to prove the authenticity of the leadership of Moses and Aaron), what was there possibly left for them to challenge, to complain about?

Nachmanides writes that whereas after the burning to death of the people offering the incense the people did believe in the authenticity of Aaron as the High Priest, they still wanted that the firstborn perform the functions of the priests instead of the Levites. They still opposed the exchange of the firstborn in favour of the Levites. Their motivation was that they wanted that every tribe should have representatives who would perform the sacrificial service in the Tabernacle. אתם המיתם את עם ה', “you have brought about the death of the nation of the Lord!” They referred to Moses having advised the rebels to test the validity of their claim to priesthood by offering incense. They still maintained that these rebels (firstborn) had been entitled to perform the duties now assigned to the Levites though they may not have been entitled to perform priestly functions. This is also the meaning of the flowering of the staff of Aaron “from the house of Levi” in verse 23 [for who did not know that Aaron was a Levite? Ed.]. Thus far Nachmanides.

כי יצא הקצף לפני ה' החל הנגף, “for wrath has gone forth from the Lord, the plague had commenced.” There is an angel whose name is קצף, whose power is derived from the attribute of Justice. As a result of this angel emerging from its “home” the plague had started to strike the Jewish people. Moses had become familiar with this angel at the time when the Torah had been given to the Jewish people. This is the meaning of Tanchuma Ki Tissa 20 on Exodus 32,2 where G’d had said to Moses: “Go and descend!” The message was that due to the people having committed the sin of the golden calf five destructive forces (angels) had been unleashed; they were the angels known as: אף, חמה, קצף, השמד, חרון. As soon as Moses mentioned the three patriarchs three of these angels were neutralized. This left the two angels אף and חמה who were still active, pursuing their destructive activities. This is what Moses had in mind in Deut. 9,19 when he said כי יגורתי מפני האף והחמה, “for I was afraid of Af and Chemah. In answer to Moses’ “fear,” G’d said to him: “you stand up against one of them!” [G’d meant that Moses’ personal merit was sufficient to neutralize at least one of these two angels. Ed.] “whereas I will deal with the second one.” This is the meaning of Psalms 7,7 קומה ה' באפך, “arise O Lord against Your אף,” [i.e. the angel known as אף. Ed.]. Moses himself was going to confront the other angel known as חמה, and this is the meaning of Psalms 106,23: לולא משה בחירו עמד בפרץ לפניו להשיב חמתו מהשחית, “if not Moses His choice one had stood in the breach to confront His angel Chemah preventing him from his destructive activities.”

When the Torah here reports Aaron as ויעמוד בין המתים ובין החיים, “standing between the dead and between the living” (verse 13), the additional word ובין is very crucial. Had the Torah only written בין המתים והחיים, this would have indicated that the “dead” were in front of him whereas no living people were amongst that group. All the living were only behind Aaron. Now that the Torah added the word ובין this indicates that amongst the people in front and behind Aaron there were both living and dead. Aaron was truly in “the middle.” This is the meaning of the incense arresting the plague, i.e. that the effect of the incense was that the situation remained as it was; no additional people died. Any of the living who had been among the dead, surrounded by them did not die as a result. We learn from this verse that originally, before Aaron intervened with his incense, the destructive angel חמה had wreaked death without exception whenever he had struck a person. He was killing the living and uprooting the dead [depriving them of their share in the hereafter. Ed.] Now, even the dead that were found among the living were no longer subject to having their hereafter denied them.

You find this thought echoed in Tanchuma Tetzaveh 15 where the Midrash examines the word החל, “commenced” in our verse and concludes that not only is the angel described as destroying systematically just as the reaper reaps in the field systematically, but the confrontation even with G’d is described. [It appears to me that when the Midrash speaks of the angel Chemah “uprooting” amongst the already dead, i.e. not skipping anyone in his destructive activity, this can only mean that he had power over the hereafter of those already slain. Ed.]

וישב אהרן אל משה אל פסח אהל מועד והמגפה נעצרה, “Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and the plague had been arrested.” Seeing that the Torah had already reported in verse 13 that as soon as Aaron put incense in his censer and stood between the living and the dead the plague stopped, why did the Torah have to repeat the fact that the plague had been arrested? The Torah teaches us here that Aaron forced the angel to come to the entrance of the Tabernacle where Moses stood. This is part of what is described in Tanchuma Tetzaveh 15, excerpts of which we have quoted already. When the angel had challenged Aaron’s interference saying that he was an agent of G’d, Aaron had countered that he was an agent of Moses. The angel ridiculed this saying that Aaron was only the messenger of a mortal human being whereas he was the messenger of eternal G’d. Aaron challenged the angel to accompany him to the entrance of the Tabernacle where both G’d and Moses could be found. The angel refused to accompany Aaron until the latter took hold of his loins and dragged him along. The Torah alludes to all this when it reports about Moses’ last day on earth in Deut. 33,11 when he blesses each of the tribes and writes ברך ה' חילו ופועל ידיו תרצה, “may the Lord bless his (Aaron’s) resources and may the work of his hands be pleasing (in the eyes of the Almighty).” This was a veiled reference to Aaron’s performance in our paragraph. Moses wished that future High Priests from the tribe of Levi be similarly successful in their efforts to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people when the need would arise to do so. The whole passage teaches how beloved the offering of incense is in the eyes of the Lord.

כי מטה אחד לראש בית אבותם, For there shall be one staff for each head of an ancestral house - meaning that even though the tribe was divided between Preistes and Levites, [they were still] one staff for the head of their ancestral house.

והיה האיש אשר אבחר בו מטהו יפרח והשיכותי מעלי את תלונות בני ישראל, “it will be that the staff of the man whom I choose will sprout, and I will rid Myself, etc.” This verse teaches that there were still some people who complained and challenged the established hierarchy even though G’d had already employed three different methods of punishments for the people challenging same, i.e. “swallowing by the earth, burning by fire and now death through the plague.” G’d now felt the time had come to make Aaron’s staff sprout seeing that the swallowing of Korach had proven that the firstborn had been disqualified in the eyes of the Lord as priests and the burning of the non-priests who had dared offer incense had proven that Aaron was the High Priest; the plague had shown that the people’s demand to have the firstborn officiate as Levites if not as priests was not acceptable. However, there were still people complaining as we know from G’d saying that He hoped the new measure, i.e. demonstrating which of the staffs of the tribes would sprout and produce fruit would settle the matter. If it would be the staff of Aaron (the Levite) this should finally put to rest any lingering doubt about the role of the tribe of Levi in the hierarchy of the Jewish people. The fact that the staff of Levi sprouted something positive, i.e. blossoms and fruit, was in contrast to the challengers whose actions had produced negative fallout for themselves on three occasions. The Torah stresses the words: “the house of Levi,” to show that it was not merely Aaron’s appointment that was confirmed thereby but the appointment of the entire tribe of Levi for its respective task as outlined in Numbers chapter eight.

ומטה אהרן בתוך מטותם, “and Aaron’s staff among their staffs.” [בתוך מטותם can be translated "in the middle of their staffs." The other tribes’ staffs were placed surrounding that of Aaron] so that it could not be argued that this miracle occurred because only his staff had been deposited near the Shechinah.

והנה פרח מטה אהרן לבית לוי, “and behold! The staff of Aaron, representing the ancestral house of Levi, sprouted, etc.” It did so because Aaron was part of the ancestral house of Levi.

ויוצא פרח ויצץ ציץ, “it had brought forth sprouts, produced blossoms, and borne almonds.” The reason the staff produced almonds instead of some other fruit [seeing the almond is not one of the fruit for which the land of Israel is famous, Ed.] is because not only are almonds highly regarded but they are the first to mature after winter. The word שקד suggests a kind of eagerness such as the prophet Jeremiah describing G’d as “eager” to carry out His promise/threat [having shown Jeremiah an almond tree in a vision, Jeremiah 1,11-12. Ed.]. In that particular instance the almond tree symbolized the bitter taste of some almonds and G’d used it as a threat of the Jewish people tasting the bitterness of exile. We have other examples of similar meanings of the simile of almonds. The people of Israel were to learn from this that if someone challenges the hierarchy as established by the Torah not only would he be punished but his punishment would be swift. The attribute of Justice would be activated against such a person. King Uzziah was a case in point; he was punished immediately he offered incense, his forehead becoming afflicted with tzoraat, the dreaded skin disease (Chronicles II 26,19).

ויראו ויקח איש מטהו, “when they saw, each (tribal representative) took his own staff.” Each one knew which was his staff as they had inscribed their names on it.

הן גוענו, אבדנו, כולנו אבדנו, “behold we perish, we are lost, we are all lost.” They meant that they were all lost as anyone approaching the sacred precincts of the Tabernacle would die. The reason the Torah repeats the expression קריבה, “approaching” in verse 28 is that if anyone who approaches the Tabernacle more closely than his neighbor is subject to death just like the 250 men who had been burned they wished they would die now [seeing they had nothing to look forward to except death in the desert. Ed.]. The question: “will we ever stop perishing?” (verse 28) suggested that the Israelites viewed the Levites as the cause of their deaths. This is why G’d told Aaron in his capacity as the tribal head of the tribe of Levi to take care that the Levites should not become the cause of Israelites dying through any error they would commit (compare Ibn Ezra on verse 27).

There is also another approach to these words הן גוענו אבדנו כלנו אבדנו; this statement by the Israelites was a reference to the three penalties that had struck the people who had challenged the existing order in Jewish society. The words הן גוענו, “here we have perished,” refer to the people who suffered death by being burned; the word אבדנו, “we are lost,” refers to the people who had been swallowed up by the earth. The final expression: כלנו אבדנו, “we have all perished,” referred to the plague which had cost 14,700 victims. (verse 14). Onkelos reflects this approach in his translation. He writes: הא מננא קטלת חרבא הא מננא בלעת ארעא, והא מננא דמיתו במותנא, i.e. he mentions the three kinds of death which struck these three groups of people by name instead of speaking in generalities as does our verse in its original. The translation of גוענו as קטלת חרבא, “death by the sword,” is quite appropriate for a description of the attribute of Justice as it is found in Isaiah 27,1.