The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram;
Psalm 106 looks back over Israel's failures, and verse 17 is where the ground itself becomes God's instrument of judgment. Why are these two men named, and what should a reader today learn from it?
Verse 17 sits inside a confession of national failure.
Psalm 106 is written as a confession. It shows their failure all the way through — sinning, forgetting, lusting, unbelieving and disobedient. Only infinite mercy and grace could save such a people.
The verse just before this one speaks of envy against Moses and Aaron. One writer traces the trouble back a step further.
They had failed to seek God's counsel. So they envied and ignored God's servants, and brought the Lord's discipline on themselves.
Another writer follows where that envy led.
The sin of Korah in Numbers 16 was also entirely prompted by envy (Ps. 106:16), and it led to even more awful consequences. Envy led Korah, Dathan, and Abiram into terrible lying about Moses and Aaron, and into insulting them. It brought a most appalling death on them. God was that swift to punish their sin.
Korah is the leading figure in the account in Numbers 16, yet the psalm names only Dathan and Abiram. One writer explains why.
How awful the thought of the earth opening its mouth and swallowing them up! And for what? For their rebellion against what God had appointed. In the history given in Numbers, Korah the Levite is the main figure. But here he is left out, and the two Reubenites are named — two members of the congregation. Moses is seeking to reach the whole body of the people. He sets before them the terrible result of self-will in two of their number — two ordinary members, as we would say, and not just a privileged Levite.
Korah and the Reubenites did not complain about the same thing. Commentators read their words as two distinct lines of attack.
In Dathan and Abiram we see the civil side of the revolt, and in the rebellious Levite the religious side. So the words of Korah are aimed mainly at Aaron, while Dathan and Abiram speak against Moses.
The same writer then weighs what Dathan and Abiram said.
They say nothing about the congregation being holy. Their complaint is that Moses had not kept his promise. It was a charge against God.
Before the ground opened, the people got one last warning.
Then came one word more. It was not only a warning and a call to separate from the guilty leaders, but 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. And at the same time fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men offering the incense. They had spoken wickedly against the Lord's anointed, and they stood there in defiance. Their judgment came suddenly, and there was no remedy.
Dathan and Abiram came from Reuben, and one writer links their rebellion to the shrinking of that tribe across the wilderness years — then turns it on the reader.
They wanted to be leaders. Under the pretence of claiming the people's rights, they rebel against God's authority in Moses, turn back in heart to Egypt, and complain at the trials of the way. Swift judgment overtakes them — the earth opens and swallows them up. But their example spreads through the people like leaven... How many, like these children of Reuben, rebel against God's authority in pure self-will and complain at the trials of the way! They only weaken themselves and their brothers. Instead of being lifted up by their independence, they find they have been brought low.
One writer sees in Korah's rebellion a picture of a later revolt.
The rebellion of Korah and the large company with him points to a dreadful revolt against Christ as both Lord and High Priest of His people, and to the awesome judgment of God that follows. This is seen in Jude 11. What a comment on the wickedness of man's heart! After many great proofs of God's kindness, and after many warnings of His judgment against evil, men will still proudly reject His authority — because they themselves want to rule.
- Neglecting — it starts with not asking God for counsel. Everything else follows from that.
- Envying — envy of Moses and Aaron was the root of the rebellion, and it drove them to lies and insults.
- Accusing — Dathan and Abiram's charge looked aimed at a man, but was in fact a charge against God.
- Swallowing — their death was unheard of before, and it came suddenly, with no remedy.
- Spreading — self-will does not stay private. Their example spread through the people, and Jude 11 shows the same spirit again.
And fire was kindled in their company; a flame burned up the wicked.
Psalm 106 is Israel's own confession of her past, and here the confession reaches the rebellion of Korah. Why did envy of God's chosen servants draw a fire like this, and what does it still warn against?
The psalm looks back to one day in the wilderness. Two judgments fell at once on one group of rebels.
Their envy of Moses and Aaron surfaced in the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram (vv. 16-17). This is recorded in Numbers 16. The earth suddenly swallowed up Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and fire consumed 250 of their followers (v. 18).
The rebels began by envying Moses and Aaron. One writer traces how that envy grew, and why the fire struck the men it struck.
The open rebellion follows the veiled one. They envy their God-given leaders. They throw off the authority of Moses and the priestly office of Aaron, Jehovah's sanctified one. The more open rebellion brings the heavier judgment. The earth swallows up Dathan and Abiram. The fire of God consumes those who arrogantly dare to draw near to Him in their own right.
Each of the 250 men came with a censer, a pan of burning coals and incense. Each claimed a place at God's door that God had not given him. The judgment matched the offence.
These princes offered the fire of their censers. In answer, the judgment fire of Jehovah came out, and they perished at the entrance of the tabernacle. What they took on themselves became a warning to Israel for all time. Their sin is just as much a warning to all would-be priests carrying censers. God has not called them, and they are really enemies of the altar of Christ's cross.
The New Testament names this judgment again by the rebel's own name. Jude's letter lists it last in a series of evils, and one writer says what kind of failure it was.
Numbers 16 sets out this solemn dealing with the rebellion of Korah. The letter of Jude lets us know it is the last and worst of the sinful developments reproduced in Christendom. "Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain in Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion." For here ministry was taking over the priesthood. That is rebellion against the effective priesthood, and it denies the Christian's right to draw near to God.
Their guilt was not in the quality of what they offered. Another writer says where it lay, and applies it to the church.
Korah and his company may have meant to keep very carefully to the directions for priestly service. But that was not the question. The question was their personal intrusion into an office to which God had not called them. They perished with censers and incense in their hands. God's dispute was with them. And just so is it with all false assumption of office in the Church. It is not a question of what may or may not be done in the office. The intrusion into it is the fearful sin.
The same writer sees this fire as an early picture of how God's wrath will finally deal with the ungodly.
The Old Testament offers much more on this subject, but this is ample proof. From the beginning, a still more tremendous destruction by fire is plainly revealed as the way the wrath of God will come against the ungodly before the great white throne.
This fire is remembered inside a psalm of confession. The point of the retelling is not the sin but the mercy that spared the nation.
Psalm 106 is written as a confession. It shows their failure all the way — sinning, forgetting, lusting, unbelieving and disobedient. Only infinite mercy and grace could save such a people. Looking ahead, these Psalms express the repentance and national confession of Israel, when the Lord has saved them. Then the nation is born again, with a new heart and a new spirit within them. They read their history rightly and learn to know the God of Jacob as never before.
- Forgetting — The psalm traces a chain: sinning, forgetting, lusting, unbelief and disobedience. The fire of verse 18 is where that road ends.
- Envying — The sin named is envy of Moses and Aaron, God's own appointed leaders. Open rebellion drew a heavier judgment than the hidden kind.
- Intruding — The flame burned the men who took censers and came near in their own right. Their guilt lay in seizing the office, not in how they filled it.
- Warning — Jude names this same rebellion again. So the verse is not a closed chapter of Israel's past, but a caution against taking a place God has not given.
- Confessing — Israel herself puts this fire into her own confession. Only mercy explains why the nation survived the history it admits.