KOHELETH.—See EccLeEsIASTEs. KOLAIAH (7p). — 14. The father of a false
prophet named Ahab, Jer 29% [Gr. 3675 υἱὸν |
Κουλιοῦ only in Q™8]. 2. The name of a Benjamite family which settled in Jerusalem after the Cap- tivity, Neh 117; B Koda, A Κωλειά.
KONA (Κωνά, Jth 44).—So B calls an unknown town of Palestine. But δαὶ reads Κωλά (as A in
Jth 15%, for Χωλά); A has Kwvas. read κώμας, whence AV ‘the villages.’ F. C. PORTER.
ΚΟΡΗ (jp).—The nineteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and as such employed in the 119th Psalm to designate the 19th part, each verse of which begins with this letter. It is transliterated in this Dictionary by &.
KORAH, DATHAN, ABIRAM (mm), jp3, o7>8).— Most readers of the Eng. Bible are familiar with the story of Korah’s rebellion, and of the terrible fate that overtook him and his followers. When we turn, however, to the record of these events (Nu 16), it is by no means easy to reduce it to a consistent or continuous narrative. The thread of the ay. is strangely broken, and we encounter remarkable repetitions (vv.%°*"°). Here, as in many other cases, we are helped by the labours of those critics who have analyzed the contents of the Hexateuch.
There is reason to believe that three strata are present in the composition of Nu 16 and 17. This conclusion, which fea been previously reached by various critics, was first placed onathoroughly satis- factory basis by Kuenen (77 (1878), p. 139 ff), whose analysis has been substantially accepted Ὁ critics of such different schools as Baudissin, Cornill, Dillmann, Driver, Robertson Smith, and Well- hausen. Of the three narratives, the first two were originally quite independent of one another, while the third works over the material from the stand- point of a later age than that of the second writer.
Some MSS
I. We have a narrative from the well-known source JE, which has suffered very slight mutilation at the hands of the final redactor. It tells how Dathan and Abiram, descendants of Reuben, the oldest of Jacob’s sons, rose against Moses, because they were jealous of the authority he claimed, and were dis- appointed with the results of his leadership. On being informed ot their murmurings, Moses cited them to appear before him; but they refused to obey the summons, and repeated to his messengers their complaints (Nu 161214), Moses, in anger(v.15), went to their tents in company with the elders of Israel, and solemnly warned the people to withdraw from the neighbour- hood of Dathan and Abiram, who, with all their households, were then swallowed up by the earth (νν. 25:99), ‘This is a rebellion of laymen against the civil authority claimed by Moses’ (Driver).
II. The author of the priestly narrative (P) relates quite a different story. Korah, at the head of 250 princes of the con- gregation, instigates a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, in the interests of the people at large against the tribe of Levi. “All the congregation are holy,’ says K. (v.%), and as much en- titled as the Levites to discharge religious functions. Moses invites them to put the matter to the proof by coming on the following day with their censers to offer incense. They accept the challenge (vv.18-19), and, in the act of offering, they are con- sumed by fire from the Lord (v.55), Their fate pees the people, who murmur that Moses and Aaron had killed the people of the Lord (v.41). A plague breaks out in consequence, which is only stayed by the atoning offering of Aaron(v.*), The story of ch. 17 is the sequel, and comes from the same source, P. ὴ The blossoming of Aaron's rod is meant to establish, not his rights in opposition to those of other Levites, but to establish the prerogative of the tribe of Levi as represented by Aaron, in opposition to the other tribes as represented by their respective princes. Here, again, we have a rebellion of laymen, but directed this time against the ecclesiastical authority vlaimed by the tribe of Levi.
II. Another writer of the priestly school, whom we may designate, with Cornill, P*, worked up the narrative at a ‘ater period. In his version of the story, K., at the head of 250 Levites, opposes, in the interest of the tribe of Lev i, the monopoly of the priesthood claimed by Aaron (vv.° )), The test proposed by Moses is the same as in the second narrative (vv.16 27, whic h are a repetition of vv.%7), ahd P’s account of the fate of the rebels is adopted (v.%) without change. From the hand of the latest writer come also vv.2840, which relate how the censers of the 250 were made intoacovering for the altar, to be a memorial of the fate of the rebels.
It is evident that the two priestly narratives have quite
different aims. In P there is no opposition between Levit sand priests, but between non-Levites and Levites, whereas in P* there isa sharp distinction between the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. (Note especially v.*, where the moral of P*'s narrative is thus given, ‘that no stranger which is not of the seed of Aaron come near to burn incense before the Lor 1, that he be not as K. and as his company’). On the other hand, it is not quite certain whether, 4 rding to the or al nar ve of P even K. himself was a Levite, for the words in ¥ the son of