KORAH
149
KORAH
Lord himself, by some manifest token, might make known his will in this great matter. As this order was particularly addressed to the rebellious Levites, the Reu- benites left the place, and when afterwards called back by Moses, returned a very insolent refusal, charging him with having brought them out of the land of Egypt un- der false pretences, "to kill them in the wilderness" (Numb, xvi, 1-17).
The next day Korah and his company ajipeared be- fore the tabernacle, attended by a multitude of people out of the general body of the tribes. Then the Sheki- nah, or symbol of the divine presence, which abode be- tween the cherubim, advanced to the entrance of the sacred fabric, and a voice therefrom commanded Moses and Aaron to stand apart, lest they should share in the destruction which awaited the whole congregation. On hearing these awful words the brothers fell on their faces, and, by strong intercession, moved the Lord to confine his wTath to the leaders in the rebellion, and spare their unhappy dupes. The latter were then or- dered to separate themselves from their leaders and from the tents in which tliey dwelt. The terrible menace involved in this direction had its weight, and the com- mand was obeyed; and after IMoses had appealed to what was to happen as a proof of the authoritj' by which lie acted, the earth opened, and received and closed over the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. The Reuben- ite conspirators were in their tents, and perished in them ; and at the same instant Korah and his 250, who were offering incense at the door of the tabernacle, were destroyed bj^ a fire which " came out from tlie Lord ;" that is, most probably, in tliis case, from out of the cloud in which his presence dwelt (Numb, xvi, 18-35). The censers which the}' had used ^vere afterwards made into plates, to form an outer covering to tlie altar, and tlius became a standing monument of this awful transaction (Numb, xvi, 30-40). The rebellious spirit excited by these ambitious men vented itself afresh on the next day ill complaints against Moses as having been the cause of death to these popular leaders ! a degree of ob- duracy and presumption that called forth the divine in- dignation so severely as not to be allayed till a sudden plague had cut off thousands of the factious multitude, and threatened still further ravages had it not been ap- peased by Aaron's offering of incense at the instance of Moses (Numb, xvi, 41-50). The recurrence of a similar jealousy was prevented by the divine choice of the fam- ily of Aaron, attested by the miraculous vegetation of his rod alone out of all the tribes (Numb. xvii). On, al- though named in the first instance along ;\ith Dathan and Abiram (ver. 1), does not further appear either in the rebellion or its punishment. It is hence supposed that he repented in time ; and Abcndana and other Rab- binical writers allege that his wife prevailed upon him to abandon the cause.
It might be supposed from the Scripture narrative that the entire families of the conspirators perished in the destruction of their tents. Doubtless all who were in the tents perished; but, as the descendants of Korah afterwards became eminent in the Levitical service [see Korahitk], it is clear that his sons were spared (Exod. vi, 24). They were probably living in separate tents, or were among those wlio sundered themselves from the conspirators at the command of Moses. There is no reason to suppose that the sons of Korah were children when'their father perished. Perhaps the fissure of the ground which swallowed up the tents of Dathan and Abiram did not extend beyond those of the Keubenites. From -Numb, xvi, 27 it seems clear tlial Korah himself was not with Dathan and Abiram at the moment. His t«nt may have been one pitched for himself, in con- tempt of the orders of Moses, by the side of his fellow- rebels, while liis family continued to reside in their proper camp nearer the tabernacle ; but it must have been separated by a considerable space from tliose of Datlian and Abiram. Or, even if Korah's family resided among the Keubenites, they may have fied, at Moses's
warning, to take refuge in the Kohathite camp, instead of remaining, as the wives and children of Dathan and Abiram did (verse 27). Korah himself was doubtless with the 250 men who bare censers nearer the talieriia- cle (ver. 19), and perished with them by the "fire from Jehovah" which accompanied the earthquake. It is nowhere said that he was one of those who " went down quick into the pit'' (compare Psa. cvi, 17, 18), and it is natural that he shoiUd have been with the censer-bear- ers. That he was so is indeed clearly implied by Numb. xvi, 16-19, 35, 40, compared with xxvi, 9, 10.
The apostle holds up Korah as a warning to presum]> tuous and self-seeking teachers, and couples his crime with those of Cain and Balaam, as being of similar enor- mity (Jude 11). The expression there used, "gainsay- ing" (^dvTiXoyia, coniradictioii), alludes to his speech in Numb, xvi, 3, and accompanying rebelUon. Compare the use of the same word in Ileb. xii, 3 ; Psa. cvi, 32, and of the verb, John xix, 12, and Isa. xxii, 22; Ixv. 2 (Sept.), in which latter passage, as quoted Rom. x, 21, the A. V. has the same expression of " gainsaying" as in Jude. The Son of Sirach, following Psa. cvi, 16, *1X?^^ iT.^'OP, etc. (otherwise rendered, however, by the Sept., Trapwpytcraj'), describes Korah and his companions as en- vious or jealous of Moses, where the English " malign- ed" is liardly an equivalent for iL,i)\wcrav (Ecclus. xlv, 18). — Kitto ; Smith. A late ingenuous writer (Prof. Rei- chel, of Dublin, Sermons, Cambr. 1855) distinguishes the crime of Korah from that of Dathan and Abiram (q. v.) as being an ecclesiastical insubordination, whereas the latter was apolitical rebellion; he also draws a parallel between the position of Aaron as representing the high- priesthood of Christ — the one underived, perpetual, and untransferable pontificate "after the order of Melchize- dek," and the Levitical order represented b}'^ Korah cor- responding to the Christian ministry ; and he arrives at the following conclusion : " The crime in the Christian Church corresponding to that which Korah and his fol- lowers committed in the Jewish Church consists, not, as is often stated, in the people taking to themselves the functions of the ministry, but in the Christian minis^iy impiously usurping the functions of Christ himself; and, not contented with their Jlaster's having separated thcTi from the congregation of his people to bring them near unto himself, to do the service of his house, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them, in their 'seeking the jmesthood also,^ Tliis is the gainsaying of Korah, which the authority of inspiration declares should be repeated even in the earliest ages of the Chris- tian Church, and which is significantly coupled by the apostle Jude with the way of Cain, and with the run- ning greedily after the error of Balaam for reward." In short, it was an attempt on the part of such as were al- ready invested with an official rank in the Levitical cultus to supplant those occupying the higher offices in the same economy, and even to derogate the supreme and exclusive control of its dispensation ; and all this for the sake merely of the honors and emoluments of the promotion. It is therefore at once apparent how little this narrative supports the arrogant claims of any class of so-called priests in the modern Church, and that it altogether fails to warrant their exclusion and con- demnation of others who have as clear a divine call as themselves to the same order of functions, especially M'hen the latter move in a different community, are ac- tuated by the most unselfish motives, and proceed in accordance with the most imperative demands of cir- cumstances.