“Adonai said to Moshe, ‘Get away from this assembly, and I will destroy them at once!’ But they fell on their faces.”
Numbers 17:9-10
In Jude 11, we read the words, “…they have been destroyed in the rebellion of Korach.” It is in putting this section of the verse together with Numbers 16 and 17 that the account makes sense. Korach, as seen in chapter 16, led the rebellion against Moshe concerning his authority. Along with Datan and Aviram, Korach was swallowed up by the earth. The remaining 250 men as named in Numbers 16:34 were destroyed by the fire of Adonai. This being true, Numbers 17:6 shares the concern of the people as they blamed Moshe for killing Adonai’s people. While the people were acting on their frustration toward Moshe and Aharon, the two noticed the cloud over the tent of meeting. Trouble was brewing.
Hearing Adonai’s voice again, and that He would destroy the people, Moshe and Aharon interceded. The two fell on their faces. Moshe then ordered of Aharon to make atonement for the people as the anger of Adonai had begun to burn and a plague was going out over the masses. Running to the middle, Aharon stood between the living and the dead. The torah records that in the brief time it took from when the two saw the trouble brewing, till the time Aharon stood in the middle, already 14,700 men alone had died. If we were to have an account also of the women and children who perished, the number could be far greater. But all this death was still a reslt of Korach’s rebellion.
Numbers 17:10-15
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