​The Rebellion of Korah

In the book of Numbers, chapter 16, the story is told of an uprising led by one of the leaders of the Israelite tribe of Levi, against the leadership of the nation. 
Korah accused Moses and his brother Aaron of making themselves higher than the people and lording it over them. He believed that all of the people were fit to dwell in the presence of the LORD, not just the priests. Korah stirred up 250 men against Moses to advance his cause. 

Moses’ response was to consult with God. He returned with a proposal to resolve the conflict: God would act to show who was really holy in His sight. The spectacular result of this divine intervention would go down in Israelite folklore. In fact, it went down in poetry. 

Num. 16:28 “And Moses said, “Hereby you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord.
29 If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the LORD has not sent me.
30 But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD.”
31 And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart.
32 And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods.
33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.”

The poetic form employed here is called chiasm. It starts with a problem, reaches a climactic turning point, and then shows the resolution of the problem. Korah’s rebellion is swiftly dealt with. The earth opens, Korah and his followers fall in, and the earth closes over them. It’s a spectacular scene. But there’s something even more amazing about this little story. 

The story of Noah and the Flood is also a chiasm. And it also features this concept of “opening and closing” in order to deal with a problem. Remember how the “windows of heaven” and the “fountains of the great deep” were opened and closed in the Flood narrative? God was dealing with a problem. 

In both cases (and there are more of these, by the way), God was dealing with a rebellion. And He did so by opening the way to another dimension. Heaven, the Deep, and Sheol are all terms used to designate the spiritual realm - a “place” that living mortals cannot inhabit, but where spirits can exist. God restores holiness and order by separating the holy from the profane, and by covering the sin of the transgressors in an act of justice.

In Korah’s story the rebellious people were removed to stop a catastrophic violation of sacred space, and the same applied to the situation in Noah’s day. The Flood removed the rebellious sons of God and their giant offspring. As for where they went, and how long they remained there, well, that’s another story. 

- TJ Steadman