Numbers 16:31-41

31 And when he ceased speaking all these words, the ground clave asunder beneath them.

32 And the ground opened, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that were with Core, and their cattle.

33 And they went down and all that they had, alive into Hades; and the ground covered them, and they perished from the midst of the congregation.

34 And all Israel round about them fled from the sound of them, for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up .

35 And fire went forth from the Lord, and devoured the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.

36 And the Lord said to Moses,

37 and to Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, Take up the brazen censers out of the midst of the men that have been burnt, and scatter the strange fire yonder, for they have sanctified the censers

38 of these sinners against their own souls, and do thou make them beaten plates a covering to the altar, because they were brought before the Lord and hallowed; and they became a sign to the children of Israel.

39 And Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest took the brazen censers, which the men who had been burnt brought near, and they put them as a covering on the altar:

40 a memorial to the children of Israel that no stranger might draw nigh, who is not of the seed of Aaron, to offer incense before the Lord; so he shall not be as Core and as they that conspired with him, as the Lord spoke to him by the hand of Moses.

41 And the children of Israel murmured the next day against Moses and Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord.

Numbers 16:31-41 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 16

This chapter gives an account of a sedition of Korah and others against Moses and Aaron, Nu 16:1-4, with whom Moses expostulates, and shows the unreasonableness of their clamour against Aaron, Nu 16:5-11; sends for Dathan and Abiram, who were in the confederacy, but refused to come, which greatly angered Moses, Nu 16:12-15; orders Korah and his company to appear before the Lord the next day, with Aaron, to have the controversy decided, Nu 16:16-18; when all the congregation gathered together would have been, consumed had it not been for the intercession of Moses and Aaron, Nu 16:19-22; and who, being separated from the rebels by the command of the Lord, some of the rebels were swallowed up in the earth, and others destroyed by fire from heaven, Nu 16:23-35; and their censers were made a covering for the altar, as a memorial of their sin, Nu 16:36-40; on which there was a new insurrection of the people, which brought a plague upon them, and destroyed 14,700 persons, and which was stopped at the intercession of Aaron, Nu 16:41-50.

Footnotes

• [a]. saying.