Commentaria in Numeros
Verse 4. “And thou shalt lay them up in the tabernacle of the covenant before the testimony,” that is, before the ark of the testimony, in which, namely, was the testimony, that is, the tables of the law, which were a testimony both of the covenant entered into between God and the people, and of the will of God, namely what God wished to be done by the Hebrews. Hence it seems that all these rods were laid in the Holy of Holies, before the ark: whence the rod of Aaron was afterwards brought back into it, as is plain from verse 10, and Hebrews ix, 4, in memory of so great a miracle, by which Aaron was designated and confirmed as pontiff, just as in the same Holy of Holies there was the manna, as a sign and perpetual memorial of the food given to the Hebrews in the desert, and the tables of the law received from God. And with this rod of Aaron the rock seems to have been struck, when it gave waters, Numbers xx, as is gathered from verse 9 there. What became of the rod of Moses is uncertain, especially since the Apostle, Hebrews ix, 4, mentions only the rod of Aaron, which had blossomed.
(I shall give the symbolic reasons of this budding on verse 8), AND I WILL RESTRAIN FROM ME (that is, I will cause to rest, the murmuring of the children of Israel).
Verse 6. “And there were twelve rods besides the rod of Aaron.” Eugubinus and the Hebrews think that this place has been wrongly translated. For they think that there were here not thirteen but only twelve rods, equal to the number of the tribes. For in the Hebrew it is thus: “And the rods were twelve, and the rod of Aaron in the midst of their rods.” But that there were twelve rods of the tribes, and consequently twelve rods besides the tribe and rod of Levi and Aaron, is plain from Numbers i, 5 and following, and verse 49. For the tribe of Joseph was divided into two, Ephraim and Manasses: whence Levi was not numbered among the twelve tribes; and this our Interpreter understood to be signified here, when it says: “And the rod of Aaron in the midst of their rods,” namely, it was placed in the midst of the twelve rods of the other tribes and princes, as the thirteenth. For the tribe of Levi, though in the lot and inheritance of the land of Chanaan to be divided it was not numbered, yet was numbered where sacred matters and the priesthood (as here) were in question.
Verses 7 and 8. “And when Moses had laid them up before the Lord, etc., he returned on the following day, and found that the rod of Aaron (who was the firstborn) for the house (that is, the tribe) of Levi was budded.” This miracle was clear, and a token of divine election, that Aaron had been designated pontiff by God; for these rods were wholly dry and withered, being staves such as travellers or shepherds of sheep have: whence naturally they could not revive and grow green again.
Verse 8. “And that the buds (berries) swelling, it had bloomed blossoms, which spreading the leaves (for the leaves of flowers spread out and fall off when the flowers are turned into almonds or other fruits) were formed into almonds,” as if to say: The form of the flowers being changed and ceasing, their buds were transformed into the fruit of almonds. In Hebrew it is: And behold the rod put forth a shoot, and blossomed with a blossom, and yielded almonds. First, therefore, this rod put forth a shoot, presently a blossom, and at once fruits, at almost the same time. By “shoot” understand, not branches and leaves, but berries or buds, as our Interpreter renders. For these berries or little cups, opening presently and spreading their leaves, ripened into flowers and then were turned into fruits. For the almond tree flowers before it puts forth leaves; for it is wont to send out berries and flowers before leaves. This almond rod, therefore, before leaves, first sent out berries, secondly flowers, thirdly fruits, and these ripe, and that suddenly. Whence in Hebrew it is, “and it weaned almonds,” that is, it had almonds now ripe, and brought to their due size and maturity, as larger and perfect children are when they are weaned.
Hence it is clear enough that this rod of Aaron was of almond wood; for otherwise, if it had been an apple tree or a pear, it would have produced not almonds but apples or pears.
Note that there was here a threefold miracle: first, that the dry rod put forth buds; second, that at the same time these buds were suddenly turned into flowers; third, that the same flowers were suddenly turned into fruit, namely into almonds. Abulensis probably holds that this rod was never afterwards dried, but remained always with flowers, or rather fruits, both because the works and miracles of God are perfect, and because this rod was a perpetual memorial and testimony among posterity of the thing done, namely that by this flowering rod the priesthood was assigned to the family of Aaron: for this could not be proved to posterity by a dry rod, but by a green one. In like manner the manna was kept always the same, like itself and incorrupt, in the tabernacle, to give posterity certain faith of that manna which God had given to their fathers in the desert.
Appositely did God use the almond here in the declaration of Aaron the pontiff: because the almond is the first among trees to flower, and first puts forth its buds and flowers: whence in Hebrew it is called shaked, that is, watching, because it first among trees after winter awakes and flowers. Hence that of Jeremias i, 11: “I see a watching rod”; others render, I see an almond rod. This almond rod, therefore, appositely signified that the right of primogeniture (for this among sons is like the almond, first flowering among trees), that is, the priesthood, belonged to Aaron, whose rod this was. The almond is also said to lose its leaves last among trees, says Philo, book III On the Life of Moses: so here it signified the long and, as it were, perennial greenness of the Aaronic priesthood.
Hear St. Ambrose, book X, epistle 82: “That flowering rod of Aaron,” he says, “what else does it show, except that the grace of the priesthood never withers, and in the greatest humility holds in its office the flower of the power committed to it?” It is added that this sign of the flowering almond happened to Aaron when he was already an old man, and verging on death (for he was at this time at least 86 years old), to signify that “the senior and priestly people,” namely the Jewish and Aaronic, “worn through with the age of long-lived unbelief, in the last times of the world, reformed in imitation of the Church, would put forth, by revived grace, into new studies of faith and devotion the flower dead so many ages.”