Numbers 16:48
And standing between the dead and the living, he prayed for the people, and the plague ceased.
Open Numbers 16:48 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →In the palace
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et stans inter mortuos ac viventes, pro populo deprecatus est, et plaga cessavit.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἔστη ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν τεθνηκότων καὶ τῶν ζώντων, καὶ ἐκόπασεν ἡ θραῦσις ἐν τῷ λαῷ.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Numbers 17:13
- וַיַּעֲמֹ֥ד בֵּֽין הַמֵּתִ֖ים וּבֵ֣ין הַֽחַיִּ֑ים וַתֵּעָצַ֖ר הַמַּגֵּפָֽה
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Gaudentius
4. The world sinks into ruin: yes! but shameful to say our sins still live and flourish. The renowned city, the capital of the Roman Empire, is swallowed up in one tremendous fire; and there is no part of the earth where Romans are not in exile. Churches once held sacred are now but heaps of dust and ashes; and yet we have our minds set on the desire of gain. We live as though we are going to die tomorrow; yet we build as though we are going to live always in this world. Our walls shine with gold, our ceilings also and the capitals of our pillars; yet Christ dies before our doors naked and hungry in the persons of His poor. The pontiff Aaron, we read, faced the raging flames, and by putting fire in his censer checked the wrath of God. The High Priest stood between the dead and the living, and the fire dared not pass his feet. …
St Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter IV. The same argument, namely, that blessedness is not lessened or added to by external matters, is illustrated by the example of men of old
11. What of Aaron? When did he ever think himself more blessed than when he stood between the living and the dead, and by his presence stayed death from passing from the bodies of the dead to the lines of the living? What shall I say of the youth Daniel, who was so wise that, when in the midst of the lions enraged with hunger, he was by no means overcome with terror at the fierceness of the beasts. So free from fear was he, that he could eat, and was not afraid he might by his example excite the animals to feed on him.
St Ambrose Epistle LXIII: To the Church at Vercellæ
51. A man clearly worthy to be proposed that all should follow him was he, for when a terrible death on account of the rebels was spreading over the people, he offered himself between the dead and the living, that he might arrest death, and that no more should perish. A man truly of priestly mind and soul, who as a good shepherd with pious affection offered himself for the Lord’s flock. And so he broke the sting of death, restrained its violence, refused it further course. Affection aided his deserts, for he offered himself for those who were resisting him.