David would famously write, “Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Ps 23:4). Comfort by a rod?
The Lord decides, once and for all, to settle the leadership issue. “Get from them a rod from…all their leaders according to their fathers’ houses—twelve rods. Write each man’s name on his rod. And you shall write Aaron’s name on the rod of Levi” (Num 17:2-3). The rod, like part of a family tree, represented each tribe branching out from the others. So twelve sticks were used, similar to Moses’ rod wielded with authority in God’s service. What is God up to? The twelve rods plus Aaron’s were placed in the tabernacle and left overnight. The next day, “behold, the rod of Aaron…had sprouted and put forth buds, had produced blossoms and yielded ripe almonds” (v 8). Imagine that! The others were just dry sticks. Moses displayed them before the people; nothing more needed to be said. The Hebrew word for almond also means “watchful,” and is used in this way in Jeremiah 1:11-12. What do you see? I see an almond (Heb, shaked), the hastening tree: that which first awakes. You have well seen, for I will hasten, or watch over (shoked), My word. The almond tree, the harbinger of spring, gave the first blossoms, appearing in January or February. The menorah had been fashioned to look like almond branches, linking spiritual life and light. Aaron’s rod, said the Lord, should be placed permanently in the ark of the testimony, “to be kept as a sign against the rebels, that you may put their complaints away from Me, lest they die” (v 10). Again, the people overreacted, “Surely we die, we perish, we all perish!” (v 12). No, this was so they wouldn’t die, so they would learn the lesson that submission to God’s rule is the happy way to live. Of course, in the grand scheme it pictures Christ, our Great High Priest, whose right it is to rule in resurrection life.