Interesting that everyone who follows the law is under a curse; is this verse saying they are cursed because it's impossible to obey the law completely? It also fascinates me to think of Jesus as "cursed."

As for the rebels...again, hard to read it out of context, although I included a huge passage...but even though it seems here everyone dies, later it turns out Korah's sons lived, and went on to write psalms.

Some commentaries I consulted when working on this section (Korah Rebellion) for an exegesis paper pointed out that even though it is shocking that the families of the rebels are punished with them, originally the whole congregation was going to be wiped out, but is not through Moses' intervention...kind of like Abraham bargaining back in Genesis.
 

My only salvation this week will be to jump in. My sense of Galatians is that the law condemns because it can not be followed in its entirety. Not that we should not try but the sheer audatiousness of seeking to live it out suggests that God is not needed to complete the work.

The law condemns because it seems there is a stacked deck against us if we try to go it alone.
 

A cursory reading of the Korahite rebellion might indicate that this passage upholds a separation between clericalism and laity, as holy Moses doesn't want to share his power. This, however, is facile. The distinctions are not between clergy and laity; rather, Korah is a Levite, which was a tribe of priests. Thus, they are seeking more power; they aren't laity seeking to share ministry.

Regarding a reading that this is just a rebellion against Moses, one needs to look at 16:13, which indicates that they are not only rebelling against Moses, but also against God.
 

I was taken todya by the numbers text. Obviously it ends badly for the followers of Korah. The difficulty of this text is that it presents nature and how it swallows up Korah as servant to God. The danger is not so much that God may or may not use nature to smite but human nature to potentially read acts of nature as God's will and then pronounce it.

For example one could say that the victims of the Tsunami were swallowed up by a God stirring up the oceans. This is obviously dangerous theology because it asumes that I know God's will. This makes me dangerous. While death and life would be part of God's will it is arrogant as all get out for me to say that the tsunami happened for "this" or "that" reason.

What I do like about the reading is that it points to Korah and his followers acting much like the Israelites who bemoan their fate in the desert. They begin wanting to return to Egypt and desiring meat and vegitable. God gives them what they want and their own shortsightedness kills them.

With Korah there is a similarity in that they complain about their deliverance. They are certainly correct that the desert is no land of milk and honey. The desert is a hard place. They have not accepted that God has brought them to this place. They reject God's judgement and lash out at Moses as if they have been forgotten.

They have not accepted that it is possible that God wills them exactly where they are. To reject that is to reject God. In this story anyway they pay the price.

A side question that has emerged is if the desert is not the land of milk and honey, what is? Could the land of milk and honey be metaphor? Could it be the action of seeking God's will first that allows for enterence to milk and honey? Land of Milk and Honey is the dependence on God?

Just a thought.
 

Interesting that Galatians focuses on the curse, i.e., "For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.' What about the blessings? As seen in Week 3 on this blog, all who live under the law are also under a blessing.
 

"Descendents of Reuben" jumped out at me today. The Bible continually overthrows the rule of primogeniture. Some of the rebels were rebelling due to rights they believed they had as descendents from the eldest son. There are two groups of rebels; one seems to be from the priestly strand, the Korahites, who are concerned with priestly things, while the others is from the J strand and comprises Reubenites concerned about Moses' leadership, i.e., rebelling against the way God works through selected leaders rather than through entitled eldest sons.
 

Today it strikes me that the OT tells us how humble Moses was, yet according to this Numbers pericope, a lot of people did not experience him as humble, instead thinking that he "went to far" and "lorded it over" them.
 

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