Numbers 16:28

28 And Moses said: By this you shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all things that you see, and that I have not forged them of my own head:

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.


FOOTNOTES:

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

Numbers 16:28 In-Context

26 He said to the multitude: Depart from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be involved in their sins.
27 And when they were departed from their tents round about, Dathan and Abiron coming out stood in the entry of their pavilions with their wives and children, and all the people.
28 And Moses said: By this you shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all things that you see, and that I have not forged them of my own head:
29 If these men die the common death of men, and if they be visited with a plague, wherewith others also are wont to be visited, the Lord did not send me.
30 But if the Lord do a new thing, and the earth opening her mouth swallow them down, and all things that belong to them, and they go down alive into hell, you shall know that they have blasphemed the Lord.
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