Numbers 15:32 While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. 34 They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. 35 And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses.
It is passages like this that make people point to the God of the Bible and portray Him as a mean, heartless ogre. They say: "kill the man for picking up sticks - really?" That's because we often read without context. In the proceeding verses God had been talking to people about intentional versus unintentional sins. The former are those done "with a high hand" - deliberate, arrogant acts of rebellion against God. We're not talking some misdemeanor act, but hateful defiance. This becomes more evident in the next event: the rebellion of Korah. Context is everything. These were not innocent people making a mistake. They are examples of why Israel had to wait in the wilderness for forty years: their rebellious hearts. As Paul says to the Corinthians: Let us learn from the example.
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