Numbers 16:28

28 Moses said, "This is how you will know that the LORD sent me to do all these things and that it wasn't my idea:

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 said to the community, "Move away from the tents of these wicked men. Don't touch anything that belongs to them, or you'll be swept away because of all their sins."

27 So they moved away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing at the entrances to their tents with their wives and children.

28 Moses said, "This is how you will know that the LORD sent me to do all these things and that it wasn't my idea:

29 If these men die like all other people--if they die a natural death--then the LORD hasn't sent me.

30 But if the LORD does something totally new--if the ground opens up, swallows them and everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive to their graves--then you'll know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt."