Bible Commentaries
Numbers 16

Verse 3

Numbers 16:3

I. Strictly speaking, the tribe of Levi was not more appointed or called by God than the tribe of Reuben or Judah. The family of Aaron was not more called by God than any Israelitish family. Each tribe was to occupy its own place in the host; each family had some work to do which God had fixed for it, and not for any other. But it would have been a most minute and mischievous legislation which attempted to define the tasks that should be performed by each family or person. The Mosaic legislation attempted nothing of the kind; it affirmed a principle of universal and individual application; it established an order which embodied that principle, and showed how all departures from it must necessarily lead to confusion; it enforced its own decrees against that order more solemnly, more tremendously, than against any other parts of the society.

II. The Mosaic history is a continual witness to the tendency which there was in the Divinely appointed order to become a caste, a perpetual record of the ways in which God was counterworking that tendency. The Aaronic family was appointed to offer the sacrifices; it was to show that God Himself was the Inventor of them. Woe to it if it tried to persuade the people that it was the inventor of them or could make them more acceptable!

III. Korah and his company were the assertors of a popular maxim. But unhappily that popular maxim would have been destructive of the people, would have been fatal to their moral, political, spiritual, freedom. Korah would have asserted for himself and the other families of the tribe of Levi the privilege and right of offering sacrifices. Dathan and Abiram would have claimed that privilege and right for all the tribes. There was a lie in the words. They at once introduced the principle of which sacrifice is the renunciation, the principle against which the family of Aaron was the permanent protest.

IV. Since it is the tendency of a mere national organisation to become exclusive, to assert the dignity of birth or the sacredness of property above the dignity and sacredness of humanity, the business of the priest in each land will be especially to protect it against this danger. The priest presents Christ's finished sacrifice for the whole human race for rich and poor, high and low. He must expect to go down alive into a deeper pit than that which received Korah and his company if he shows that wealth, honours, distinctions of any kind, are the objects of his search, not remembering that "he that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 204.

Verses 8-11

Numbers 16:8-11

I. The sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram was this: they were discontented with the arrangement made for public worship by the choosing out of Aaron and his family to be priests. The argument they used was a very plausible one, because it depended upon the great truth of the Lord's being with all His people, consecrating and sanctifying them all, making them all in a certain sense holy to the Lord, in a certain sense priests.

It also flattered the vanity of the people, and strengthened them in the notion that they were oppressed by their rulers.

II. The answer to this argument was that Moses and Aaron had not lifted themselves up at all; the Lord had lifted them up. This was the answer which was ultimately given, with very terrible emphasis, by the swallowing up of Korah and his company. Korah and his company had laid great stress on the fact that all the congregation of the Lord were holy. Moses and Aaron might very well have replied, that they for their part by no means questioned the fact. Moses had never represented the choice of Aaron and his family as a declaration that they only of the people were holy. Nothing could be a greater mistake on the part of the people than to take this view of the priestly consecration.

III. Between our own priesthood and that of the Israelites there is still the great common ground of ministry before God in behalf of others which must be at the basis of every religion. Hence both priest and people may learn a lesson. The priest may learn that his office does not imply that he is holier or better than his brethren, but that it does imply greater responsibility, greater opportunities of good, greater sin if he does evil. And the people may learn to be gentle and considerate to those who are over them in the Lord, not to be ready to find fault and condemn, but rather to be charitable, and forbearing, and gentle.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 124.

References: Numbers 16:8 . Preacher's Monthly, vol. vii., p. 241, Numbers 16:10 . C. P. Reichel, The Lord's Prayer, p. 271.Numbers 16:23 , Numbers 16:24 . I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 114.Numbers 16:32-35 . C. Kingsley, The Gospel of the Pentateuch, p. 191.Numbers 16:35 . Parker, vol. iv., p. 56. Numbers 16:38 . Ibid. Numbers 16:47 , Numbers 16:48 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 341; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. viii., p. 209. Numbers 16:48 . F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 353; Preacher's Monthly, vol. v., p.-225; Parker, vol. iii., p. 249. Numbers 16:0 , Numbers 17:0 . W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 339. Numbers 17:12 , Numbers 17:13 . C. J. Vaughan, Sunday Magazine, 1866, p. 457. Numbers 17:13 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. x., p. 154.Numbers 18:20 . Parker, vol. iv., p. 57. Numbers 18:27 . Ibid., p. 58. Numbers 19:2 , Numbers 19:3 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., p. 527. Numbers 20:1-12 . J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 270. Numbers 20:1-14 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iv., p. 205.Numbers 20:1-29 . W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 358.