“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.”
Even this was not enough. The discontent continued, and Moses went on to meet it by the miracle of Aaron’s rod.