🔢WEB · Numbers 16:40
What does Numbers 16:40 mean?
"to be a memorial to the children of Israel, to the end that no stranger, who isn’t of the offspring of Aaron, would come near to burn incense before Yahweh, that he not be as Korah, and as his company; as Yahweh spoke to him by Moses."
— Numbers 16:40 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
“Speak to Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning, and scatter the fire away from the camp; for they are holy,
even the censers of those who sinned against their own lives. Let them be beaten into plates for a covering of the altar, for they offered them before Yahweh. Therefore they are holy. They shall be a sign to the children of Israel.”
Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered; and they beat them out for a covering of the altar,
to be a memorial to the children of Israel, to the end that no stranger, who isn’t of the offspring of Aaron, would come near to burn incense before Yahweh, that he not be as Korah, and as his company; as Yahweh spoke to him by Moses.
But on the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed Yahweh’s people!”
When the congregation was assembled against Moses and against Aaron, They looked toward the Tent of Meeting. Behold, the cloud covered it, and Yahweh’s glory appeared.
Moses and Aaron came to the front of the Tent of Meeting.
Explanation
Numbers 16:40 explains the purpose behind a physical object that Israel was commanded to make and keep: hammered bronze plating for the altar, created from the censers of men who had died as a result of God's judgment. The verse states plainly that this covering existed as a "memorial," a lasting visual reminder to the whole nation that no one outside the family of Aaron was permitted to approach God's altar to burn incense. The warning is direct — anyone who tried to do so would meet the same fate as Kor
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