Numbers 16:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

NUMBERS CHAPTER 16 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram raise sedition against Moses and Aaron, Numbers 16:1-3. Moses reproving them, Numbers 16:4-11, sends for Dathan and Abiram; their refusal and answer, Numbers 16:12-14. The manneer of their punishment, Numbers 16:15-35. Their perfuming censers are kept for a memorial and warning, Numbers 16:36-40. The people murmur against Moses and Aaron, for which they are consumed by the plague, which Aaron by Moses's order stays, Numbers 16:41-50. Korah, the first and chief author of this rebellion, Numbers 16:11 Judges 1:11. Izhar was Amram's brother, Exodus 6:18, therefore Moses and he were cousin-germans. Moreover Izhar was the second son of Kohath, whereas Elizaphan, whom Moses had preferred before him, and made prince or ruler of the Kohathites, Numbers 3:30, was the son of Uzziel, the fourth son of Kohath. This, the Jewish writers say, made him malcontent, which at last broke forth into sedition. Sons of-Reuben: these are drawn into confederacy with Korah, partly because they were his next neighbours, both being encamped on the south side, and therefore could easily communicate counsels; partly in hopes to recover their rights of primogeniture, in which the priesthood was comprehended, which was given away from their father. Took men, to wit, those two hundred and fifty mentioned Numbers 16:2. In the Hebrew there is nothing but took, and the Hebrew words are placed and may well be rendered thus, Now Korah took both Dathan and Abiram, &c., or took Dathan, &c., the particle vau being here superfluous, as it is Genesis 8:6, and elsewhere.