Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 245
16:23-41
N u mbers
233
And the Lord said to Moses, “Then tell all the people to get away from
the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”
So Moses got up and rushed over to the tents of Dathan and Abiram,
followed by the elders of Israel. “Quick!” he told the people. “Get away
from the tents of these wicked men, and don’t touch anything that belongs
to them. If you do, you will be destroyed for their sins.” So all the people
stood back from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Then Dathan
and Abiram came out and stood at the entrances of their tents, together
with their wives and children and little ones.
And Moses said, “This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me
to do all these things that I have done—for I have not done them on my
own. If these men die a natural death, or if nothing unusual happens, then
the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord does something entirely new
and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them and all their belongings, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these
men have shown contempt for the Lord.”
He had hardly finished speaking the words when the ground suddenly
split open beneath them. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed the
men, along with their households and all their followers who were standing with them, and everything they owned. So they went down alive into
the grave, along with all their belongings. The earth closed over them, and
they all vanished from among the people of Israel. All the people around
them fled when they heard their screams. “The earth will swallow us,
too!” they cried. Then fire blazed forth from the Lord and burned up the
250 men who were offering incense.
And the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to
pull all the incense burners from the fire, for they are holy. Also tell him
to scatter the burning coals. Take the incense burners of these men who
have sinned at the cost of their lives, and hammer the metal into a thin
sheet to overlay the altar. Since these burners were used in the Lord’s presence, they have become holy. Let them serve as a warning to the people
of Israel.”
So Eleazar the priest collected the 250 bronze incense burners that had
been used by the men who died in the fire, and the bronze was hammered
into a thin sheet to overlay the altar. This would warn the Israelites that
no unauthorized person—no one who was not a descendant of Aaron—
should ever enter the Lord’s presence to burn incense. If anyone did, the
same thing would happen to him as happened to Korah and his followers.
So the Lord’s instructions to Moses were carried out.
But the very next morning the whole community of Israel began muttering again against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have killed the Lord’s
