52 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Numbers 16 This chapter gives an account of a sedition of Korah and others against Moses and Aaron, Numbers 16:1, with whom Moses expostulates, and shows the unreasonableness of their clamour against Aaron, Numbers 16:5; sends for Dathan and Abiram, who were in the confederacy, but refused to come, which greatly angered Moses,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi,.... A great grandson of Levi's, and own cousin to Moses and Aaron, being brothers children; for Amram the father of Moses and Aaron, and Izhar the father of Korah, were own brothers, both of them the sons of Kohath, and Amram the eldest, and Izhar the next, Exodus 6:16; this man is...
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary - Matthew Henry
The date of the history contained in this chapter is altogether uncertain. Probably these mutinies happened after their removal back again from Kadesh-barnea, when they were fixed (if I may so speak) for their wandering in the wilderness, and began to look upon that as their settlement. Presently after new laws given follows the story of a new...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they rose up before Moses,.... To his face, openly and publicly, in a bold and audacious manner; with impudence, as the Targum of Jonathan: with certain of the children of Israel; some out of the several tribes, but perhaps chiefly of the tribe of Reuben, as Jarchi: two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly; or "congregation" (i), who were...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they gathered themselves together against Moses, and against Aaron,.... They met together by appointment, and went up in a body to Moses and Aaron: and said unto them, [ye take] too much upon you; the one to be king, and the other to be priest; for they imagined that Moses took the civil government into his hands, and Aaron the priesthood, of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And when Moses heard [it],.... What they said, their complaint against him, for setting up Aaron for an high priest, and against Aaron for taking this honour to himself: he fell upon his face; through shame, as the Targum of Jonathan, blushing at their sin, in opposing the ordinance of God; and through fear of the divine displeasure, and of the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he spake unto Korah, and unto all his company,.... The two hundred fifty princes that were with him; what follows was said to them apart from Dathan and Abiram, who seem not to be present at this time; and this was after Moses had finished his prayer to God, and had received instructions from him, by an impulse on his mind, what he should say...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
This do, take you censers,.... Vessels to put incense in to offer, which was the business of the priests: Korah, and all his company; the two hundred fifty princes that were with him, for so many we read took censers, and offered incense, Numbers 16:18.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And put fire therein,.... Into the censers: and put incense in them; on the coals of fire in the censers: before the Lord; not at the altar of incense in the holy place, into which none but Aaron and his sons might come, but at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, where the glory of the Lord appeared, Numbers 16:18; and this they were...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Moses said unto Korah,.... Continued his discourse to him, as the head of the conspiracy, and the ringleader of it: hear, I pray you, ye sons of Levi; to whom also he had been before speaking; though Aben Ezra thinks the first speech was made to Korah and his company, and what follows to the Levites.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[Seemeth it but] a small thing unto you,.... It should not; for it was a great thing which the Lord had done for them, and with which they should have been satisfied, and for it thankful: that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel: this was a special favour, and ought to have been esteemed such, that God, who was the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he hath brought thee near [to him],.... To be in his courts, to watch in his house, and wait on his priests, for which an ample provision was made by tithes. Korah is there personally addressed: and all thy brethren, the sons of Levi, with thee; the whole tribe of them, excepting Aaron and his family, who were advanced to be priests: and seek...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For which cause, both [thou] and all thy company [are] gathered together against the Lord,.... For gathering together against his ministers, whom he had put into office to act under him, and endeavouring to overturn a constitution of his erecting, and resisting and not submitting to an ordinance of his, is interpreted gathering against him, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab,.... He sent messengers to call them to the house of judgment, as the Targum of Jonathan, to the court of judicature, where the Jews suppose Moses, with the seventy elders, were now sitting: it seems these two men departed either before. Moses rose up from prayer, or however before he had...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[Is it] a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey?.... Meaning Egypt, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it; which, though a plentiful country, never had, nor deserved to have this epithet given it, which is peculiar to the land of Canaan, and is here given, in opposition to the description of that...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Moreover, thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey,.... Meaning the land of Canaan; but this was no fault of Moses, he had brought them to the borders of it, he had bid them go up and possess it; but they refused, and chose to have spies first sent into it, who brought an ill report of it, which they listened to, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Moses was very wroth,.... Or "it heated Moses exceedingly" (p); made him very angry, caused him to burn with wrath against them; even the speech they made, the words they uttered, not so much on account of their ill usage of him, as for the dishonour cast upon the Lord: and said unto the Lord, respect not thou their offering; their "Minchah",...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Moses said unto Korah,.... Who was still with him, when the messenger returned from Dathan and Abiram, and who heard what Moses said in his own defence; be thou and all thy company before the Lord; at the tabernacle, at the door of it; the Targum of Jonathan is, at the house of judgment, the court of judicature, where this affair was to be...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And take every man his censer, and put incense therein,.... Which they were to bring with them the next day from their own tents; and these might be censers which they had in their several families, and which they had used in them before the order of priesthood was set up in Aaron's family, and limited to that; or they might be a sort of chafing...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they took every man his censer, and that fire in them,.... That is, they came the next morning, according to order, prepared with their censers and incense; and they took fire from off the altar of burnt offering, which stood in the court of the tabernacle: and laid incense thereon: upon the fire in their censers, and so burned it: and stood...