Numbers 16:12

12 And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiron sons of Eliab; and they said, We will not go up.

Numbers 16:12 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 16:12

And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab,
&c.] He sent messengers to call them to the house of judgment, as the Targum of Jonathan, to the court of judicature, where the Jews suppose Moses, with the seventy elders, were now sitting: it seems these two men departed either before. Moses rose up from prayer, or however before he had finished his speech to Korah and the Levites; which being particularly directed to them, these men might think they had no concern in it, and went away to their own tents:

which said, we will not come up;
this answer they returned to the messengers, and by them to Moses, declaring that they denied his power, despised his authority, and would not obey his orders, and therefore refused to come up to the tabernacle, or to the tent of Moses, or to the court of judicature, wherever it was; perhaps the first is best. Aben Ezra thinks, that as the tabernacle was in the midst of the camp, it was on an eminence, wherefore those that came to it might be said to come up to it.

Numbers 16:12 In-Context

10 And he has brought thee near and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee, and do ye seek to be priests also?

11 Thus thee and all thy congregation which is gathered together against God: and who is Aaron, that ye murmur against him?

12 And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiron sons of Eliab; and they said, We will not go up.

13 Is it a little thing that thou hast brought us up to a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that thou altogether rulest over us?

14 Thou art a prince, and hast thou brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, and hast thou given us an inheritance of land and vineyards? wouldest thou have put out the eyes of those men? we will not go up.

Footnotes

• [a]. do not.