Ver. 1. The son of Izhar.] And so first cousin to Moses and Aaron; for Izhar was brother to Amram their father. (Exodus 6:18) Sons of Reuben.] Who, being next neighbours to Korah in the camp, were the sooner corrupted by him. “ Uvaque corrupta livorem ducit ab uva. ’’— Juven.
Ver. 2. Princes of the assembly.] A very dangerous conspiracy: for as in a beast the body follows the head, so in that bellua multorum capitum, the multitude. Great men are the looking glasses of the country, according to which most men dress themselves: their sins do as seldom go unattended as their persons: height of place ever adds two wings to sin, example and scandal, whereby it soars higher, and flies much further.
Ver. 3. Against Moses and against Aaron.] They were against both magistracy and ministry, as our late levellers, and would have brought in anarchy, that every man might offer his own sacrifice, and do that which is good in his own eyes: Regnum Cyclopicum.
Ver. 4. He fell upon his face.] As a suppliant to them, not to proceed in their rebellion; or rather to God, not to proceed against them for their sin.
Ver. 5. And he spake unto Korah.] By the instinct of the Spirit, who had given into his heart a present answer to his prayer, and furnished him with this answer.
Ver. 7. Ye take too much upon you.] He retorts that upon them, that they had falsely charged upon him and Aaron. So doth Elias upon Ahab. (1 Kings 18:17,18) So do we worthily upon Popery, the charge of novelty. When a Papist tauntingly demanded of a Protestant, Where was your religion before Luther? he was answered, In the Bible, where yours never was. Scaliger truly and trimly told the Jesuits, Nos non sumus novatores, sed vos estis veteratores, We are not novellers, but you old cheaters.
Ver. 8. Ye sons of Levi.] He took these to task apart; as hoping, haply, to withdraw them from their purpose, and to hide pride from them, (Job 33:17) but they proved uncounsellable, incorrigible.
Ver. 9. Seemeth it but a small thing.] While these ambitious Levites would be looking up to the priests, Moses sends down their eyes to the people. The way not to repine at those above us, is to look at those below us.
Ver. 10. And seek ye the priesthood also.] Ambition is restless and unsatisfiable; for, like the crocodile, it grows as long as it lives.
Ver. 11. And what is Aaron?] q.d., Is it not God whom ye wound through Aaron’s sides? “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4)
Ver. 12. We will not come up.] Sturdy rebels, ripe for destruction. See Proverbs 29:1. [See Trapp on “Pr 29:1”] One perhaps had knocked off, and is therefore no more mentioned. Satius est recurrere, quam male currere, as that emperor said, Better stop or step back, than run on to utter ruin.
Ver. 13. That floweth with milk and honey.] So they falsely and maliciously speak of the land of Egypt, in derision of the land of Canaan, whereunto that praise properly belonged. Those that were born in hell know no other heaven. Altogether a prince over us.] So their quarrel was against Moses’ principality, though they pretended the priesthood only at first. If the ministry once be taken away, let the magistrate see to himself; he is next.
Ver. 14. We will not come up,] sc., To the place of judgment. So they add rebellion to sin, and justify their treasonful practices; as did Ravailliac, Fawks, Saunders, others.
Ver. 15. And Moses was very wroth.] Or, Very sore grieved. He might have said, as one once did, Felix essem si non imperitassem, Happy had I been if I had never been in place of authority. Egypt is said by Seneca to have been loquax et ingeniosa in contumeliam praefectorum provincia, in qua qui vitaverit culpam non effugit infamiam, A province apt to find fault with, and to speak hardly of their rulers, though never so innocent. These rebels had haply learned those Egyptian manners, by living so long amongst them. I have not taken one ass from them.] Moses was not of them that follow the administration of justice as a trade only, with an unquenchable and unconscionable desire of gain. This is but robbery with authority, and justifies the common resemblance of the courts of justice to the bush, where to while the sheep flees for defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of his fleece.
Ver. 16. Thy company.] Or, Thy congregation, thy faction, or Church malignant, as Psalms 26:5 Ac 19:32,40.
Ver. 17. And take every man his censer.] Which they had ready provided, when first they combined to thrust themselves into the priests’ office.
Ver. 18. And stood in the door.] Such an impudency had sin oaded in their faces, that they stood stouting it out before the Lord, and made open profession of their wickedness: there was no need to dig to find it out, (Jeremiah 2:34) for they set it, as it were, upon the cliff of the rock. (Ezekiel 24:7)
Ver. 19. All the congregation.] Not his own company only: for the whole multitude was too ready to favour his attempt, as he persuaded them God also would, his design being to introduce an equal popularity. And the glory of the Lord.] Shining in the cloud over the sanctuary as at other times in like cases. (Numbers 16:42 Numbers 14:10 Exodus 40:34)
Ver. 21. Separate yourselves.] Good men are taken away from the evil to come. When God pulls away the pillars, what will become of the building? Lot was no sooner taken out of Sodom, but Sodom was taken out of the world.
Ver. 22. The God of the spirits.] The Former and Father of spirits, (Zechariah 12:1 Hebrews 12:9) “that giveth to all ζωην και πνοην, life and breath,” (Acts 17:25) in whose hand is the soul of all living, and the spirit of all flesh. (Job 12:10)
Ver. 24. Get you up from about.] “Save yourselves from this untoward generation”; (Acts 2:40) force yourselves from them, stave them off, as the word signifies (στελλεσθαι παραγγελλομεν, 2 Thessalonians 3:6), and we charge you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to do so. Ut scias quam aegre divellimur, saith one.
Ver. 26. Lest ye be consumed.] See Numbers 16:24, [See Trapp on “Re 18:4”] Hamath fares the worse for lying so near Damascus. (Zechariah 9:2) St John sprang out of the bath, where he found Cerinthus the heretic.
Ver. 27. Came out and stood.] As out facing Moses, and scorning the judgment threatened. Deus quem destruit dementat. Hardened sinners make no more of God’s dreadful threatenings, than behemoth doth of iron weapons, which he esteemeth as straws.
Ver. 28. Hereby ye shall know.] Thus he engageth the truth and honour of his office upon a miracle. But now he that expects a miracle, is himself a miracle, saith Augustine. Let Papists brag of their lying wonders. (2 Thessalonians 2:9) We dislike not altogether that observation of Gretser the Jesuit, Tam sterilis et deserta est Lutherana et Calviniana secta, ut diabolus ne dignetur quidem per eam aliquid fallacium et umbratilium prodigiorum aggredi, saltem frequenter et palam. So dull and dry is the Lutheran and Calvinian sect, that the devil deigns not to work any, or not many miracles, among them, as he doth among the Catholics.
Ver. 29. The common death of all men.] Ne quisquam sua morte defunctus est, said Suetonius of Caesar’s murderers. So may we say of our gun powder plotters; Your sin will find you out.
Ver. 30. Quick unto the pit.] Not into hell, as the Papists conclude from this text; for how could their houses and goods go down to hell? (Numbers 16:32) and who would not hope that some of them were innocent, some penitent? The punishment they suffered in being buried alive was very miserable; and so accounted by the heathens, who served their vestal virgins in this sort that had been deflowered.
Ver. 31. As he had made an end of speaking.] Dictum factum; so it is still. (John 20:23) Vengeance is every whit as ready in God’s hands, as in his ministers’ mouths. (2 Corinthians 10:6)
Ver. 32. And the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up.] So it did a great part of Antioch, by a horrible earthquake, anno 527, for their horrible heresies and blasphemies there broached by the bishops, and defended by the people. So lately Pleurs in Italy.
Ver. 33. And they perished from among.] So the gun powder plotters here; and before them the northern rebels. That rebellion, saith one, like the bubbles, which children blow up into the air, was no sooner blown up than blown out, and fell into the eyes of those who with blasts of ambition and superstition held it up.
Ver. 34. Lest the earth swallow us up also.] Let the destruction of others be a terror to us, that we may wash our feet in the blood of the wicked. (Psalms 52:6) But he that is swallowed up with earth, as Korah, his ears stopped, his heart stuffed with earth, shall have earth enough when he dies, but of heaven little enough.
Ver. 35. And there came out a fire.] By fire they sinned, and by a fire they suffer:— “ Per quod quis peccat, per idem punitur ipse. ”
Ver. 37. For they are hallowed.] And therefore may not be turned to any other use.
Ver. 38. These sinners against their own souls.] So are all such as spend the span of this transitory life, after the ways of their own hearts, and thereby perish for ever. Sin is the soul’s poison; yet how heartily do men feed upon it, as Tartars do upon dead horses; as the maid in Pliny did upon spiders; as the Turkish galley slaves do upon opium, an ounce whereof they will eat at once as if it were bread!
Ver. 40. To be a memorial.] God cannot abide to be forgotten; and they are worthily made examples that will not take them; as that second captain in 2 Kings 1:11,12
Ver. 41. But on the morrow.] That after conviction they should so soon again rebel, and run away with the bit in their mouths, was prodigious contumacy.
Ver. 42. And behold the cloud.] Deus εκ μηχανης. God, as out of an engine, appears for his distressed servants.
Ver. 46. For there is wrath.] Moses is quick sighted, and spies it at first setting out. By how much more faithful and familiar men are with God, so much earlier do they discern his wrath.
Ver. 47. The plague.] Which ran as a fire in a grain field.
Ver. 48. And he stood between.] A clear type of Christ.