The Budding of Aaron's Staff

(Book of Numbers 17:1 - 17:13)
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Tell the Israelites to have them furnish you with 12 staffs, one belonging to the leader of each the ancestral tribes.  Write the name of the owner on each staff, with Aaron's name on the staff from the Tribe of Levi.  There must be only one staff for each tribal leader.  Place the staffs in the Tabernacle, in front of the Chest of Sacred Records, where I commune with you.  The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout with a bud -- this will put an end to all the complaints and protests the Israelites have been making against you."

Moses conveyed these instructions to the people of Israel and each of the tribal leaders, including Aaron, brought Moses a staff.  Moses placed the staffs in the Inner Sanctum in front of the Chest of Sacred Records.  When Moses returned there the next day, he found that Aaron's staff, the one representing the Tribe of Levi, had sprouted, budded, blossomed, and bore ripe almonds!  Moses brought all the staffs from the Inner Sanctum and showed them to Israelite people so they could examined them.  Each leader claimed his own staff.

Jehovah ordered Moses, "Return Aaron's staff to the Inner Sanctum and let it remain in front of the Chest of Sacred Records as a warning to the rebellious.  They will stop their complaints against me -- or they will die!"  Moses did as he was told by Jehovah.

The Israelites cried to Moses, "We are doomed to die!  We're lost!  We're all lost!  Anyone who comes near the Inner Sanctum will die.  Are we all not going to die?"

Notes
1. To resolve the dispute over who and what tribe should serve in Jehovah's Tabernacle and be the high priest, Jehovah arranges a demonstration.  Apparently, in spite of his glorious presence and manifestations of power, he is unable to convince the Israelites of his wishes.  And so to express himself with a demonstration, he performs a miracle and makes the staff of Aaron bud and bring forth ripe almonds.  (Do almonds have some significance here?)  As usual, Jehovah does not emphasis the positive, the honor he has done Aaron by singling him out, but makes the staff a warning, a warning of death to any who may challenge his selection or usurp Aaron's position.

2. Despite the resolution of this issue, the Israelites are apparently not happy campers, but seem frantic with fear.  Jehovah, their less than comforting god, has already killed many thousands of them and there seems a perhaps not irrational fear that he will kill more, although it's clear death threatens only those who violate the Sanctum.

3. The tribal leaders write their names on their staffs.  It’s wonderful that they are all literate, but in what language do they write?  It could only be Egyptian hieroglyphics, since Hebrew would not emerge as a language for centuries, nor would any sort of alphabet.