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Punishment of Dathan and Abiram. 25 Moses, followed by the elders of Israel, arose and went to Dathan and Abiram.[a] 26 Then he spoke to the community, “Move away from the tents of these wicked men and do not touch anything that is theirs: otherwise you too will be swept away because of all their sins.” 27 So they withdrew from the area around the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. When Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing at the entrance of their tents with their wives, their children, and their little ones, 28 Moses said, “This is how you shall know that the Lord sent me to do all I have done, and that it was not of my own devising: 29 if these die an ordinary death, merely suffering the fate common to all humanity, the Lord has not sent me. 30 But if the Lord makes a chasm, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them with all belonging to them, and they go down alive to Sheol,[b] then you will know that these men have spurned the Lord.” 31 (A)No sooner had he finished saying all this than the ground beneath them split open, 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their families and all of Korah’s people[c] with all their possessions. 33 They went down alive to Sheol with all belonging to them; the earth closed over them, and they disappeared from the assembly. 34 But all the Israelites near them fled at their shrieks, saying, “The earth might swallow us too!”

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Footnotes

  1. 16:25 Since Dathan and Abiram had refused to go to Moses (vv. 12–14), he, with the elders as witnesses, was obliged to go to their tents.
  2. 16:30 Sheol: see note on Ps 6:6.
  3. 16:32 And all of Korah’s people: the implication of this secondary addition to the text is, on the one hand, that Korah met his death elsewhere, presumably with the two hundred and fifty offering incense (vv. 16–17, 35); or, on the other hand, he died along with Dathan and Abiram in the splitting of the earth.