CONSPIRACY

Numbers 16
The most formidable conspiracy which was ever formed against
the authority of Moses and Aaron, took place soon after the doom
of forty years wandering had been pronounced. It was precisely
at such a timeif at one time more than anotherthat we might
expect to hear of plots and conspiracies among the people. It
must be remembered, that the arrangement of the sacred and
political administration was still recent. It could not have been
organized without exciting disappointment and dissatisfaction on
the part of some, who considered their claim as good as that of
the men who had been preferred to them; and there had not yet
been opportunity for time and the habit of subordination to
assuage their discontent, or for the partiality of their retainers and
partisans to have acquiesced in the established order of things.
On the other hand, the people were depressed and uneasy, and
in a fit condition to be tampered with by factious leaders. Mortified
as they must have been by the recollection of their late unworthy
conduct, and goaded by the thought of having been condemned
in consequence to renounce for life the hope of occupying their
long-promised home, the time must have been favorable for
engaging them in a rebellious movement. They would now, if
ever, be ready to lend an open ear to the assurance, that under
the auspices of other leaders than those who had lately
denounced against them the sentence of so weary a delay, they
might be able forthwith to prosecute an enterprise on which their
hearts had been so strongly set.
The circumstances of the time being thus so favorable to the
conspirators, the conspiracy which comes before us was formed
by the very persons who might be expected to move in it. The
sacred writer does not, indeed, evince any solicitude to set forth
the motives of the parties engaged; but his plain recital, and the
circumstances and names which he sets down, give us a clear
insight into the nature of the case.
We discover two interests at workone against the sacerdotal,
and the other against the political, power and pre-eminenceand
we find the two coalescing to produce the objects sought by both.
We do not discover that they desired to disturb the institutions as
established; but that they aspired to take to themselves the power
which these institutions gave to others.
Previously to its separation for sacerdotal services, the tribe of
Levi, like the other tribes, was governed as to its internal matters,
and as to the part it should take in general matters, by the
patriarchal chief or emircalled in Scripture the prince of the
tribe, who seems to have been the representative of the eldest
branch of the tribethe one, in short, who was to be regarded as
the heir of the founder. Now, to this ruling branch Moses and
Aaron did not belong; and the representative of that elder branch
would find himself deprived of his special and peculiar powers
under the new institutions which made the high-priest the virtual
head of the tribe, and saw himself and connections merged in the
general Levitical bodythe priesthood, which had become the
part of Aaron in the tribe, being given to another family. Korah
was a Kohathite, descended from a brother of the progenitor of
Aaron, probably an older son of the common ancestor; and the
feeling seems to have been, that the priesthood should, by right of
birth, have belonged to his family, and by consequence that he
should have been high-priest. This point of his personal ambition
was not indeed obtruded at the first view, but seems to have been
sagaciously kept back by him, in the knowledge that if he
succeeded in establishing the claims of his family to become the
priestly house, the other result would follow of course. Indeed, he
set himself forth as the champion of the whole Levitical body, less
asserting the claims of his own family, than contesting the
invidious distinction conferred on Aarons family over the whole
tribe. He was aware, that if this family were deposed, it would
soon become necessary to appropriate another to the particular
service; and that then the claims of his own family would be
paramountfor the grounds on which that of Aaron had been
deposed, would leave room for no other claim but that hereditary
one which he and his family could advance. We are thus enabled
to sound the depths of this plot, as to the part which certain of the
Levitical body took in it.
Some of the same grounds which led the eldest family of Levi to
claim the rights which were conceived to belong to it in that tribe,
would exist also in leading the chiefs of the eldest tribe, that of
Reuben, to murmur at that practical deposition of that tribe from
its natural birthright, which had indeed been announced long ago
by the dying Jacobbut which was now first practically enforced
as a reality and an accomplished fact. Inasmuch as the chiefs of
the tribes represented the patriarchal power which the sons of
Jacob, during their lifetime, exercised over the tribes which
sprang from themthe chief of the eldest tribe represented not
only the founder of the particular tribe, but the common founder of
all the tribes, whose heir he was. This gave him some general
right of counsel and control over all the tribesand of taking a
certain initiatory part in measures of common concernment to the
whole nation, and in his person, more than that of any other man,
was found the tie which bound the tribes together. Certain rights
of precedence also belonged to him; and the performance of
priestly actsthat is, of taking the leading part in acts of public
worship by sacrifice or otherwisehad always been considered
as no mean part of the birthright of the eldest born. But in forming
the arrangements of the new government, the tribe of Reuben
was altogether overlooked, and its pride must have been much
wounded (considering how highly the rank of primogeniture was
valued) by the precedence assigned to the tribe of Judah in all the
encampments used on the marchand this perhaps galled it
more sorely than the absorption of all sacerdotal influence and
office, as well as of considerable political power, by the Levitical
tribe. Hence we are not surprised to find that the other leaders not
of the tribe of Levi, were of that of Reuben; their names were
Dathan, Abiram, and On, and the manner in which the Levitical
conspirators keep their own private claims as much as possible in
the backgroundgeneralizing them to the utmostmay strongly
suggest to the mind that this was done to keep their Reubenite
allies in good humor by not strongly putting forward their own
claims to the exercise of a function which these allies considered
as belonging of right to the first-born, In fact, no one can look
closely into this transaction without perceiving that the Levitical
conspirators were playing a deep game, in which not only the
people generally, but their own Reubenite friends, were little more
than the tools with which they sought to work out their own
objectsand that in fact they had ulterior objects of special
advantage which they did not, and dared not, then openly avow,
or even disclose to their companions. There may perhaps be
ground to suppose that the Reubenites suspected something of
thisfor although we find Ons name among the leading
conspirators, it does not appear when the names are repeated in
the subsequent proceedings, and in the final judgment, and this
may suggest that he became suspicious and dissatisfied, and
hence seceded from the conspiracy in good time.
It deserves to be noticed, that in a camp which must have
covered an extent of many miles, the situation of the two parties
in relation to one another, when encamped, was such as to afford
them all facilities for exciting one anothers passions and of
maturing the plot. The allotted place of the tents of Reuben was
on the south side of the central area in which the tabernacle
stood; and between them and the tabernacle was the
encampment of the Kohathitesthe division of the Levitical family
to which Korah belonged. Our judgment of historical incidents
must often be materially influenced by small circumstances like
this, which are apt to escape common notice.
Considering the nature of this conspiracy, the objects at which it
aimed, and the importance of the men engaged in it, it was in the
highest degree necessary that it should not only be frustrated, but
brought to nothing by some such signal and terrible judgment as
should effectually repress the tendency to such baleful
manifestations of private ambition and popular discontent, and
afford the infant state the protection needful to prevent its welfare
from being subject to perpetual hazards, machinations, and broils.
On hearing the charges daringly brought against his conduct and
designs by the conspirators, Moses fell on his face before the
Lord, and having obtained the requisite directions, he appointed
the next day for the trial of this great matter. They complained of
the usurpation of the priesthood; but to show whether this
appointment had been of man or of Godlet them come to the
tabernacle and perform the priestly function of offering incense,
and the Lord would make it known who were the objects of his
choice. Accordingly on the next day, Korah and his company
appeared at the tabernacle. Moses also sent for the Reubenite
leadersand although they returned an insolent refusal to attend,
their curiosity to witness the result, induced them to come out and
stand in the door of their tents, where they could command a
perfect view of the proceedings. Moses then arose, awful from his
supplicating kneesand directed the people to stand clear of the
tents of Dathan and Abiram; and the habit of obedience to the
voice of their great leader caused his command to be followed
though from the manner of encampment, these persons must for
the most part have been their friends and neighbors. The man of
God then spoke: Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent
me to do all these works. If these men die the common death of
all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all menthen
the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing, and
the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that
appertain unto them, then shall ye understand that these men
have provoked the Lord. From the beginning of the world unto
this day, no man ever made so bold and noble an assertion of
Divine approval, or subjected his claims, in the presence of a
nation, to a test so immediate and so infallible. But the response
to this awful appeal was not for a moment delayed. The earth did
open; and Dathan and Abiramthey, their tents, and all they had,
went down, and the earth closed over themthey were seen no
more. At the same moment a fire went forth from the presence of
the Lord, and smote down with instant death the men with their
censers at the door of the tabernaclein number two hundred
and fifty. Thus both branches of the great conspiracy were at
once extinguished by a judgment most signal, immediate, and
miraculous.