Numbers 16:30

30 But if the Lord does something new, you will know they have insulted the Lord. The ground will open and swallow them. They will be buried alive and will go to the place of the dead, and everything that belongs to them will go with them."

Numbers 16:30 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 16:30

But if the Lord make a new thing
Or "create a creation", or "creature" F19, what never was before, or put those persons to a death that none ever in the world died of yet; what that is he means is next expressed:

and the earth open her mouth and swallow them up, with all that
[appertain] unto them;
their persons, their wives, children and substance:

and they go down quick into the pit;
alive into the grave the opening earth makes for them; this is the new thing created; though the Rabbins say F20, the mouth of the earth, or the opening of the earth, was created from the days of the creation, that is, it was determined or decreed so early that it should be:

then ye shall understated that these men have provoked the Lord;
by rising up against Moses and Aaron, and so against the Lord; by falsely accusing his servants, and endeavouring to set the people against them, and so alter the constitution of things in church and state.


FOOTNOTES:

F19 (arby hayrb) "creationem, creaverit", Pagninus, Montanus, Munster, Fagius; "creaturam", Vatablus, Drusius.
F20 Pirke Abot, c. 5. sect. 6. Pirke Eliezer, c. 19.

Numbers 16:30 In-Context

28 Then Moses said, "Now you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things; it was not my idea.
29 If these men die a normal death -- the way men usually die -- then the Lord did not really send me.
30 But if the Lord does something new, you will know they have insulted the Lord. The ground will open and swallow them. They will be buried alive and will go to the place of the dead, and everything that belongs to them will go with them."
31 When Moses finished saying these things, the ground under the men split open.
32 The earth opened and swallowed them and all their families. All Korah's men and everything they owned went down.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.