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Korah (Num 16:1 - 18:23) |
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B'Midbar/Numbers 16:14 And moreover ... nor have you given to us an inheritance of field and vineyard!
View whole verse and interlinear translation ...
The verb 
- a Qal
2ms prefix form of the root
, to give - has the
literal translation "and you have given", so needs to be combined with the
two words 
- morever not -
from the start of the verse to hear the full meaning of the complaint. The
first phrase of the verse, "Moreover, you have not brought us to a land
flowing with milk and honey" has been discussed
earlier, but the negative particle carries through
to include this second expectation of the people that Moshe had failed to
meet. The people are still in the desert; they have just heard the
consequences of listening to the bad report of the ten spies and refusing
to enter the Land: that the whole of their generation will die in the
desert because they would not believe and obey G-d; so they turn on Moshe
and accuse him of trying to "lord it over us as well" (v. 13,
Friedman). "Who do you think you are," the rebels
complain, "who can't even keep your own promises?"
What Is ...
Targum Onkelos: An early (1st-2nd Century CE) translation/paraphrase of the Torah into Aramaic; attributed to a Roman convert to Judaism, Onkelos; used in Babylonian synagogues during the Talmudic era
Targum Onkelos takes the Hebrew collective singular
"field and vineyard" and
pluralises them: 
"fields
and vineyards". Moving away from the generalised idea of the collective
field and vineyard, it worsens the offence by insisting that everyone
should have them, each for themselves, as their own personal possession.
The
Who Is ...
Sforno: Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno (1470-1550 CE), Italian rabbi, philosopher and physician; born in Cesena, he went to Rome to study medicine; left in 1525 and after some years of travel, settled in Bologna where he founded a yeshiva which he conducted until his death
Sforno suggests that the rebels think that Moshe is
deliberately making fun of them: "You jest with us for you have not brought
to the Land into which you said and still you speak as though you have
given us such an inheritance by commanding us those commandments which are
connected only to the Land - 'When you reap the harvest of your land,
you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you
gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your
vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard'
(Vayikra 19:9-10, ESV) - as thought it was already ours and we
have fields and vineyards in it."
Rabbi
Who Is ...
Hirsch: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888 CE), German rabbi, author and educator; staunch opponent of the Reform movement in Germany and one of the fathers of Orthodox Judaism
Hirsch paraphrases the complaint to show the measure of
breakdown between Moshe and the rebels: "this means, 'To us, the older
generation which came out of Egypt, you have already brought misfortune and
broken your word. But we do not even believe at all in your further
promise that our children will come to possess the land.'" He portrays the
people, who now knew that they were going to die in the wilderness,
although they incorrectly blame that on Moshe rather than themselves and
accuse him of having broken his word to them, as having used that to
destroy even the possibility that their children will ever inherit the Land.
What we seem to see, then, is that the people have developed an obsession with land, with property, with tangible assets, as a way of deciding whether the promises of G-d are real and being accomplished. Although they were nothing but landless slaves in Egypt, they have latched on to the idea of owning their very own personal piece of real estate as being the barometer by which they evaluate their relationship with G-d. It is as if all the way through the wilderness so far, they have had the picture of their own vineyard or field as their personal target - that was what they were going for: the reason for the flight from Egypt was to bring them to their own set of fields and vineyard. Now that they had lost the chance of ever achieving that for themselves, because of their own disbelief in what G-d could do, they attempt switch the blame on to Moshe by claiming that he had broken his promises to them and failed to give them their rights. "If we can see it and have it, we'll believe it," they scream, "otherwise you lied. We want our rights!"
The writer to the Hebrews draws a very different picture of the
relationship between
The Name ...
HaShem: literally, Hebrew for 'The Name' - an allusion used to avoid pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, the so-called 'ineffable' name of G–d
HaShem, the patriarchs and the Land.
Had G-d promised Avraham the Land? Certainly He had: "Arise, walk
through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you"
(B'resheet 13:17, ESV). What about Yitz'khak? He was the
offspring: "To your offspring I give this land" (15:18, ESV).
And Ya'akov? "The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to
you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you" (35:12,
ESV). G-d's promise is then repeated, nearly forty years after
the rebellion in our text, by Moshe to the people that are actually about
to enter the Land: "Go, take possession of the land that the L-RD swore
to your fathers, Avraham, Yitz'khak and Ya'akov, to assign to them and to
their heirs after them" (D'varim 1:8, JPS). This was an oft
repeated and well known promise, held and cherished by the patriarchs who
are complimented for their faith in believing that promise against all
apparent odds: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to
a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not
knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of
promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs
with him of the same promise" (Hebrew 11:8-9, ESV). Avraham set
out into the blue; Yitz'khak stayed in the Land in spite of famine and
aggression from its then inhabitants; Ya'akov was brought up in the Land,
left for twenty years, raised his own family in the Land and then finally
went down to Egypt. None of them realised the promise of ownership and
possession they had been given: "These all died in faith, not having
received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from
afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the
earth" (v. 13, ESV).
How did they do that? What stopped them becoming fixated on the Land itself? Why didn't they complain about the lack of fields and vineyards, tenured security and land ownership? The writer to the Hebrew explains: "For he [that is, Avraham] was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is G-d" (v. 10, ESV). The patriarchs knew that they were called to something beyond bricks and mortar; they had been called by G-d Himself, to participate in the kingdom of G-d, based upon G-d's promises and the realities of life that is provided and sustained each day by G-d. They recognised and welcomed God's promises for their descendants, while depending each day on G-d's provision for that day: food, water and the tent over their heads.
So the question for us today is: do we have a fixation on land, on stuff, on tangible assets that we think are our right? Have we translated G-d's "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV) into a promise of a comfortable home, of material and financial prosperity, of good health and family, of possessions and ephemera to satisfy most - if not all - of our whims? Do we then get disappointed and pout at G-d when He fails to meet our demands - after all, He promised; it is our right! Society today has become insistent upon its rights: the right to have and spend money, even at the expense of others; the right to practice birth control by killing unborn children; the right to to worship all, any or no god(s); the right to as many sexual relationships we we like, with whomever we like, of whatever gender we like; the right to squander the earth's resources as and when we please; the right to abuse our own bodies with drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and then be rescued from the results of our own folly; even the right to be right about everything without censure or criticism.
We have to learn that with rights (or privileges) come responsibilities. With freedom comes accountability for the way we have used that freedom. As Yeshua said, "From him who has been given much, much will be demanded" (Luke 12:48, CJB). Those who rebelled in the desert discovered that fairly quickly: "the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah, with their possessions" (B'Midbar 16:31-32); G-d executed summary judgement against them, with no right of appeal. No less must believers be careful that we do not find ourselves insisting upon "our rights" and defying or fighting G-d, lest we too be subject to His judgement: "man will be brought low and mankind humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled" (Isaiah 5:15, NIV). We need instead to fix our hope and aspirations upon Yeshua and His kingdom; we need to focus on Him: hearing and obeying His words. He will provide for us, that is a sure and certain promise, as we seek Him: "seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33, CJB). Our primary concern is for Him; we leave Him to take care of the rest!
Further Study: Romans 1:19-20; Matthew 11:28-30
Application:
Is that new CD or jacket so important that it is blocking your relationship
with G-d? Perhaps it is time to adjust your life priorities and move Him
back to the number one slot.
© Jonathan Allen, 2012
Your turn - what do you think of the ideas in this drash ?
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