Matthew Henry on Numbers 17:8–end
Here is, I. The final determination of the controversy concerning the priesthood by a miracle, Num 17:8, Num 17:9. The rods or staves were brought out from the most holy place where they were laid up, and publicly produced before the people; and, while all the rest of the rods remained as they were, Aaron's rod only, of a dry stick, became a living branch, budded, and blossomed, and yielded almonds. In some places there were buds, in others blossoms, in others fruit, at the same time. This was miraculous, and took away all suspicion of a fraud, as if in the night Moses had taken away Aaron's rod, and put a living branch of an almond tree in the room of it; for no ordinary branch would have b…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 17:8
Moses went into the tabernacle--being privileged to do so on this occasion by the special command of God. And he there beheld the remarkable spectacle of Aaron's rod--which, according to JOSEPHUS, was a stick of an almond tree, bearing fruit in three different stages at once--buds, blossoms, and fruit.
John Gill on Numbers 17:9
And Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord, unto all the children of Israel,.... He brought them out of the holy place, and showed them to the princes of the several tribes:
and they looked, and took every man his rod; which they knew by their names upon them; by their own handwriting, as Aben Ezra; for though Moses is bid to write their names on them, Numbers 17:2; yet no more may be meant by that than that he should order them to be written, and take care that they were.
John Calvin on Numbers 17:8-9
And it came to pass, that on the morrow. It is not without cause that, the time is notified, for by no skill could it be brought about that a rod should blossom in the lapse of a single night. Again, all suspicion of fraud was removed by the fact that Moses departed when he had placed the rods in the sanctuary, and, returning on the next day, brought out the bundle of rods before them all. But in this respect was the power of God principally shown forth, that in so short a space of time not only flowers, but fruits also, were formed upon a dry bough, which could not have occurred but by the reversal of the order of nature. And further, the time of year is to be taken into account, which was…
