Numbers 16 Summary

Korah son of Izhar, together with Dathan and Abiram of the tribe of Reuben and 250 prominent men of the assembly, rose up against Moses and Aaron, challenging their exclusive leadership and priestly authority. Moses directed the rebels to appear before the LORD the next day with censers and incense so that God himself would declare whom he had chosen; meanwhile Dathan and Abiram defiantly refused to come to Moses and accused him of tyranny. When the congregation assembled at the tabernacle, the glory of the LORD appeared and God commanded Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the rebels; the ground then opened and swallowed Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and their households alive, while fire from the LORD consumed the 250 men offering incense. The following day the congregation again murmured against Moses and Aaron, a plague broke out among the people, and Aaron ran into the congregation with a burning censer of incense to make atonement, standing between the dead and the living until the plague was stopped, having already killed 14,700 people. Eleazar the priest recovered the censers of the slain men and had them hammered into a bronze covering for the altar as a perpetual memorial that no one outside Aaron's line should presume to offer incense before the LORD.