Numbers 16:28

28 Moshe said, "Here is how you will know that ADONAI has sent me to do all these things and that I haven't done them out of my own ambition:

Numbers 16:28 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 16:28

And Moses said, hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent
me to do all these works
To bring the people of Israel out of Egypt, to exchange the firstborn for the Levites, to make Aaron and his sons priests, to give the Levites to them, and to set Elizaphan over the Kohathites, things which these men found fault with, and questioned his authority for doing them:

for [I have] not [done them] of my own mind;
or "not out of my heart" {q}; he had not devised them himself, and done them of his own head, and in any arbitrary way, without the will of God or any authority from him, as these men suggested.

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FOOTNOTES:

F17 (yblm al yk) "quod non de corde meo", Pagninus, Montanus.

Numbers 16:28 In-Context

26 There he said to the assembly, "Leave the tents of these wicked men! Don't touch anything that belongs to them, or you may be swept away in all their sins."

27 So they moved away from all around the area where Korach, Datan and Aviram lived. Then Datan and Aviram came out and stood at the entrance to their tents with their wives, sons and little ones.

28 Moshe said, "Here is how you will know that ADONAI has sent me to do all these things and that I haven't done them out of my own ambition:

29 if these men die a natural death like other people, only sharing the fate common to all humanity, then ADONAI has not sent me.

30 But if ADONAI does something new - if the ground opens up and swallows them with everything they own, and they go down alive to Sh'ol - then you will understand that these men have had contempt for ADONAI."