And it came to pass when he had ended speaking all these words, that the ground clave apart that was under them.
Moses had just staked his whole standing on a sign. An ordinary death for the rebels would prove him a fraud; a new act of God would settle the matter — and the last word had barely left his mouth when the earth split.
Moses was not improvising. He named the outcome in advance, so that the event itself would settle who had sent him.
Then Moses spoke solemnly as a prophet, to show Israel that he had not acted by his own will, but as God directed him. He tells them that if these men died natural deaths, God had not spoken by Moses. But if the Lord created a new thing, making the earth open and swallow them up, then one thing would be clear: these men had rejected the Lord Himself.
Moses could leave the result to God because he wanted nothing for himself.
Moses, in these words, makes it a question simply between the Lord and the rebels. He can appeal to God, and leave everything in His hands. This is the true secret of moral power. A man who has nothing of his own to seek — no aim or object but the divine glory — can confidently wait for how things turn out. But for this, the eye must be single, the heart upright, the purpose pure. It will not do to assume or pretend anything.
One writer weighs which part of this judgment was new, and what the watching crowd did with it.
That judgment by fire was no new thing. The earth opening and swallowing them up was both new and unexpected. Moses had warned them, saying, "If the Lord makes a new thing." But those who stood around Dathan and his company seemed to believe it no more than the men who perished did. That explains the terror of the surrounding crowd. They fled at the cry of those who went down alive into the pit, saying, "Lest the earth swallow us up too." But it produced no change in them.
Korah was not a man God had passed over. The trouble began with what he did with the honour he already had.
Unbelief constantly shows itself in this very form. If God puts an honour on a man, and the man does not receive it as from Him, that honour becomes only a stepping stone. The man despises the God who gave it, while grasping after what God has never given him. Nothing produces such dissatisfaction as a heart that fails to put the right value on what God has given us.
The irony of verse 31 is that the man who wanted to go higher is the one who went down.
How much better it would have been for Korah if he had been content with his Levite service, which was of the very highest order. His work as a Kohathite was to carry some of the most precious vessels of the sanctuary, but he aimed at the priesthood, and fell into the pit.
This was never only a dispute about leadership. One writer places it last in a line of departures from God, and names what Korah's demand really attacked.
The last case before us is the rebellion of Korah, and here those who depart from God perish. This was not just the selfish twisting of truth into a means of self-advancement, bad as that was. It was open, deliberate revolt against the rights of Christ Himself. Moses was the apostle of the faith Israel confessed, and Aaron was its high priest. Christ is the apostle and the high priest of the faith we confess. For a man to claim and exercise a priesthood now is a direct invasion of what only Jesus Christ can do at the right hand of God.
Korah's line was not wiped out. A later note in Numbers records the exception, and Israel's songbook still carries the family name.
In Numbers 26:11 we meet the exception that sovereign mercy made: "Nevertheless, the sons of Korah did not die." Notice this in connection with the Psalms — the eleven Psalms "for the sons of Korah."
The chapter is not only a warning about rebellion; it is an argument for contentment with a small place.
If God gives us a crossing to sweep, let us sweep it, under His eye and to His praise. The great and all-essential point is this: be found doing the very work He gives us to do, and filling the very post He appoints us to. Had Korah and his company learnt this, their piercing cry would never have terrified the hearts of their brothers. But no; they would be something when they were nothing, and so they went down into the pit. If we are governed by the rule of God's kingdom, we shall find that the only way to get up is to go down.
- Grasping — Korah already held a high honour. Discontent with the place God gave him turned that honour into a weapon against God.
- Staking — Moses named the sign in advance and left the outcome with God. He could wait without fear, because he had nothing of his own to gain.
- Splitting — death by fire had happened before; the opening ground had not. The sign was unmistakable, yet the onlookers fled in terror without repenting.
- Sparing — the sons of Korah did not die. Eleven Psalms carry their name. Judgment fell, but mercy drew a line through it.
- Stooping — the man who reached upward went down alive. In God's kingdom the only way up is down.
And the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men that belonged to Korah, and all their property.
The ground splits open under Korah's tents. It is one of the most shocking scenes in Israel's forty years in the wilderness, and it answers a demand for a place God had not given. Why did a quarrel over religious position end in a death no one had seen before, and did anyone in that camp escape?
Korah was a Levite, already separated to serve at the tabernacle. Commentators trace his ruin to discontent with the very gift God had handed him.
Unbelief constantly shows itself in this very form. If God puts an honour on a man, and he does not receive it as from Him, that honour only becomes a stepping stone. He despises the God who gave it, while grasping after what He has never given. Nothing produces such dissatisfaction as a heart that puts the wrong value on what God has given us.
His daily work already put him in touch with the holiest things in Israel.
How much better it would have been for Korah if he had been content with his Levite service. It was of the very highest order. As a Kohathite, his work was to carry some of the most precious vessels of the sanctuary. But he aimed at the priesthood, and fell into the pit.
God first warned the people to move away from the rebels. What came next was no ordinary death.
One word more. It was not only a warning, a call to separate from the guilty leaders. It was the sentence of death — and not a common death, but a death unheard of before... At once the earth opens. They go down alive into the pit. They perish from among the congregation... They had spoken wickedly against the Lord's anointed, and they stood there in defiance. Their judgment came suddenly, and there was no remedy.
The wording of this verse is careful. Set it beside other passages and a difference appears.
Numbers 26:10 seems to say that the earth swallowed up Korah. But Numbers 16:32 speaks only of "the people who belonged to Korah". And in Deuteronomy 11:6 and Psalm 106:17-18 only Dathan and Abiram are named as swallowed up. There was an exception in the case of Korah: his children were not included in the punishment. Several psalms carry the names of his sons or descendants, who took part in the service of song.
That distinction fits the two forms the judgment took in the chapter.
In the case of Korah the judgment came straight from the hand of God in His dwelling-place. In the case of the others it came through God's ordering of the forces of nature.
Everything belonging to these households went down. The one exception is the surprise of the whole chapter.
The exception of grace was in the household of the very worst of them. As man would have thought, the people who deserved it least were the very ones for whom God reserved this special grace — the sons of Korah! ... Where can you find a finer sample of grace's power, and of how it rises above every circumstance? Look at the grace that singled out and saved the children of Korah — the most infamous of those who had conspired against Moses and Aaron, the two men who pictured Christ as king and priest.
This rebellion is not left in the past. Jude uses Korah's name for the last stage of a road that ends in ruin.
Jude sets before us the beginning, the way, and the end... The last stage is Korah's rebellion, and here those who depart from God perish. This is not just the selfish twisting of truth into a means of self-advancement, driven by the greed of the heart — bad as that is. It is open, planned rebellion against the rights of Christ Himself. Moses was the apostle of the Jewish faith, as Aaron was its high priest. Christ is the apostle and the high priest of the faith we confess. To claim and exercise a priesthood for man today is a direct invasion of work that Jesus Christ alone can carry out at the right hand of God.
Some also read the scene as a preview of a judgment still to come.
In Korah, of the tribe of Levi, we see men who had been given a place of nearness in ministry pushing into the rights that belong to the high priest alone. This is a complete denial of the necessity of the priesthood of Christ... So too, in the day that is coming, God will have the Antichrist cast into the lake of fire — the false prophet who would seize the place of Christ.
- Place given. Korah held one of the highest services in Israel. His sin began when that place stopped being enough.
- Place seized. Reaching for the priesthood was open rebellion against the rights of Moses and Aaron — and so against Christ, whom the two men pictured.
- Place opened. The death was unlike any Israel had seen, and it came suddenly and without remedy.
- Place spared. The households went down, yet Korah's own sons lived. Grace rested on the family least likely to receive it.
- Place warned. Jude points back to Korah as the pattern of the end for all who invade what belongs to Christ alone.
And they went down, they and all that they had, alive into Sheol, and the earth covered them; and they perished from among the congregation.
The ground opened under Korah, Dathan and Abiram and swallowed them alive, along with their households and everything they owned. Older translations read "the pit" where the ESV has "Sheol," and both the death itself and that word have drawn close study.
One writer explains why no one could blame this death on bad luck or geology.
"A new thing." This then was not a mere earthquake. Whatever causes earthquakes now, there was no natural cause for this one. It was the direct act of God in marked and special judgment. Nothing is so terrifying as an earthquake. This one bears the mark of its timing: it came when men first openly attacked the rights of Christ as King, in the person of Moses.
Moses set out the test in advance and let God answer it:
Moses tells them that if these men died ordinary deaths, God had not spoken through him. But if the Lord created a new thing, making the earth open and swallow them up, then it would be clear that these men had rejected the Lord Himself.
The old wording "went down quick into the pit" sounds as if they died suddenly. One writer corrects that, and argues the phrase describes a state, not only a burial plot:
As to the word "into," we can speak of an individual going into death, who may never be in the grave at all. The moment a man dies he is in death. The body usually waits hours or days before burial. "In" or "into" can apply to a condition just as much as to a place. We may add that the word "quick" does not refer to the suddenness of the act, but means they went down living into sheol.
Commentators differ on how wide the word reaches. Another writer treats it as covering both the burial place and the state of the departed:
The mistake starts with a wrong idea of what the term sheol covers. It really includes the grave, as well as the region where spirits, still without their bodies, wait for their resurrection... The congregation of Dathan and Abiram went down alive into the pit (sheol)... People understood sheol as what we might call the whole underworld. They thought of both body and soul as entering it.
Korah was not an outsider. He already held a high place, and that is what makes his end so pointed:
How much better it would have been for Korah to stay content with his Levite service. It was of the very highest order. His work as a Kohathite was to carry some of the most precious vessels of the sanctuary. But he aimed at the priesthood, and fell into the pit.
Others read the same sin as an attack on a truth, not just on a man:
Moses saw that this was not only a refusal of Aaron. It was a refusal of this truth: as a sinful people, they could have no standing before God except through the priest who offered the sacrifice.
The pit did not take everyone in Korah's family. One writer follows what became of those spared:
Sovereign grace saved the sons of Korah from the awful fate of the father. They were saved from the pit. Mercy was remembered in wrath... And more than that, the Holy Spirit inspired them to write some of the beautiful Psalms. Read Psalm 84, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts."
One writer sets this rebellion at the end of a path with clear stages:
Korah's rebellion is the last stage in this wilderness history. Jude sees it as the last form of the evil in the Christian world, an evil already at work in his own day... He shows how that evil develops. First comes "the way of Cain" — that is, self-righteousness, which has no need of the atoning sacrifice. Then comes the spirit of Balaam, leading others astray for pay. Finally comes what we have here, the rebellion of Korah, the height of their wickedness, in which they perish. The final step is open opposition to God, and to Him whom "God has made both Lord and Christ": so their doom is assured.
One writer turns the same warning on anyone claiming priestly office today:
It was a fearful thing to sin against Aaron. Is it then a light matter to sin now against Christ, by taking over the work of the priesthood? We earnestly urge you to repent before the terrible judgment, now so near at hand, overtakes you.
- Cause — Korah already carried the holiest vessels. He wanted the priesthood as well, and lost everything.
- Sign — The ground opening was something new, with no natural cause behind it. It proved that God, not Moses, had spoken.
- Word — "Alive" does not mean "suddenly." They went down living into Sheol — a word for a condition, not just a burial plot.
- Mercy — Grace spared the sons of Korah. The judgment that swallowed the father left his sons alive, and they later wrote psalms.
- Warning — Jude puts Korah at the end of a road: first self-righteousness, then greed for pay, then open opposition to Christ.