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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
These reasoned that, being descendants of the eldest son of Jacob, the
chief authority, which Moses usurped, belonged to them; and, with
Korah, they were resolved to obtain the office of the priesthood. These
three became very zealous in an evil work and influenced two hundred
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and fifty men of renown, who were also determined to have a share in
the priesthood and the government, to join them.
God had honored the Levites to do service in the tabernacle because
they took no part in making and worshiping the golden calf and because
of their faithfulness in executing the order of God upon the idolaters.
To the Levites was also assigned the office of erecting the tabernacle
and encamping around about it, while the hosts of Israel pitched their
tents at a distance from it. And when they journeyed, the Levites took
down the tabernacle and bore it and the ark and all the sacred articles
of furniture. Because God thus honored the Levites, they became
ambitious for still higher office, that they might obtain greater influence
with the congregation. “And they gathered themselves together against
Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon
you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the
Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the
congregation of the Lord?”
Flattery and False Sympathy
There is nothing which will please the people better than to be
praised and flattered when they are in darkness and wrong, and deserve
reproof. Korah gained the ears of the people, and next their sympathies,
by representing Moses as an overbearing leader. He said that he was
too harsh, too exacting, too dictatorial, and that he reproved the people
as though they were sinners when they were a holy people, sanctified
to the Lord, and the Lord was among them. Korah rehearsed the
incidents in their experience in their travels through the wilderness,
where they had been brought into strait places, and where many of
them had died because of murmuring and disobedience, and with
their perverted senses they thought they saw very clearly that all their
trouble might have been saved if Moses had pursued a different course.
He was too unyielding, too exacting, and they decided that all their
disasters in the wilderness were chargeable to him. Korah, the leading
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