Korah Leads a Rebellion
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given us inheritance of fields and vineyards: wilt thou put out the eyes
of these men? We will not come up.”
Thus they declared that they would no longer submit to be led about
like blind men, now toward Canaan, and now toward the wilderness,
as best suited Moses’ ambitious designs. He was represented in the
blackest character of a tyrant and usurper. The exclusion from Canaan
was charged upon him.
Moses made no effort at self-vindication. He solemnly appealed
to God in the presence of the congregation and implored Him to be
his judge.
The Great Test: Whom Would God Acknowledge?
On the morrow, the two hundred and fifty princes, with Korah at
their head, presented themselves with their censers, while the people
gathered to await the result. It was not Moses who assembled the
congregation to behold the defeat of Korah and his company, but the
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rebels, in their blind presumption, had called them together to witness
their victory. A large part of the congregation openly sided with Korah.
Korah had withdrawn from the assembly to join Dathan and Abi-
ram when Moses, accompanied by the seventy elders, went down with
a last warning to the men who had refused to come to him. Moses, by
divine direction, bade the people, “Depart, I pray you, from the tents
of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed
in all their sins.” The warning was obeyed, for an apprehension of
impending judgment rested upon all. The chief rebels saw themselves
abandoned by those whom they had deceived, but they stood with their
families in defiance of the divine warning.
Moses now declared in the hearing of the congregation: “Hereby
ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I
have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common
death of all men ... then the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord
make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them
up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the
pit, then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.”
As he ceased speaking, the solid earth parted and the rebels went
down alive into the pit, with all that pertained to them, and “they per-