Numbers 16 explained: A Revolt Against Moses and Aaron

Korah's challenge (vv. 1-11)

Korah was a Levite, from the tribe set apart to serve at the sacred tent, and with 250 respected leaders he argued that because all Israel was holy, Aaron's family had no special right to be priests. Moses called for a test with censers, pans for burning incense on hot coals, which was a priest's task, and told the Levites their own honored role should have been enough.

Dathan and Abiram refuse (vv. 12-15)

These men from the tribe of Reuben objected to Moses' leadership rather than the priesthood, even calling Egypt the land of milk and honey and saying Moses had failed to deliver the promised land. Angry, Moses asked the LORD to reject their offering and insisted he had never taken so much as a donkey from anyone.

A plea for the many (vv. 16-24)

When Korah gathered the crowd against Moses and Aaron at the sacred tent, the LORD threatened to destroy the whole assembly. Moses and Aaron pleaded that everyone should not suffer for one man's sin, and the warning was narrowed to the rebels' tents.

The ground opens (vv. 25-35)

Moses said a death unlike any natural one would prove he had not acted on his own, and the earth swallowed the rebels' households, wives and children included, while fire killed the 250 men offering incense. The text does not soften this, though a later chapter says Korah's own sons did not die, and it is not entirely clear which of the two deaths Korah himself suffered.

Censers become a warning (vv. 36-40)

Because the censers had been offered to the LORD, they were treated as holy and hammered into a bronze covering for the altar. Anyone who saw it would be reminded that only Aaron's descendants could burn incense there.

Aaron stops the plague (vv. 41-50)

The next day the people blamed Moses and Aaron for the deaths, and a plague broke out that killed 14,700. Aaron ran into the crowd with incense and stood between the dead and the living until it stopped, a scene Christians have read as a picture of Jesus standing between people and death.

Key verse: Numbers 16:48

Something to think about

When someone challenges a leader by saying everyone is equal, how might you tell a fair complaint from a grab for power?