Numbers 16:41

THE MURMURERS, THE PLAGUE, AND THE ATONEMENT, Numbers 16:41-50.

41. On the morrow all… murmured The spiritual stupidity and obstinacy of Israel on this occasion is truly astonishing. The divine judgments, which alarm believers and deter them from sin, only harden the impenitent. This is an example of the conduct of persons abandoned by the Holy Spirit, and given over to hardness of heart. For at Kadesh adult Israel passed the boundary between God’s mercy and his wrath. It is supposed that they wickedly attributed the awful judgment of the day before to some sort of magical incantation or mechanical contrivance on the part of Moses and Aaron. This is intimated in the charge ye have killed. Had they discerned the hand of Jehovah in the opening earth and consuming fire they could not have ascribed the destruction to a human cause. Men hopelessly hardened in heart are bereft of all power of moral discernment, putting good for evil and evil for good. Hence defiant rebels against Jehovah, who have been swallowed up in their sins, are impiously styled the people of the Lord. They charged upon their leaders the terrible judgment which had descended upon the insurgents; whereas, it was through the intercession of Moses that the whole congregation was not at once destroyed! It is evident that they were smitten with judicial blindness, incapacitating for correct judgments.