Numbers 16:28

28 Then Moses said, "This is how you will know that the Lord sent me^[a] to do all these things and that it was not of my own will:

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 He warned the community, "Get away now from the tents of these wicked men. Don't touch anything that belongs to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins."

27 So they got away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Meanwhile, Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the entrance of their tents with their wives, children, and infants.

28 Then Moses said, "This is how you will know that the Lord sent me to do all these things and that it was not of my own will:

29 If these men die [naturally] as all people would, and suffer the fate of all, then the Lord has not sent me.

30 But if the Lord brings about something unprecedented, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them along with all that belongs to them so that they go down alive into Sheol, then you will know that these men have despised the Lord."

Footnotes

• [a]. Ex 3:10-12