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Numbers 16 · a question people ask

Why did the wives and children die too?

Interpretation

The chapter gives no reason beyond what it tells. The congregation was warned: "Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs" (16:26). Then "Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood at the door of their tents with their wives, their sons, and their little ones" (16:27), and the earth swallowed them "with their households" (16:32). Yet "the sons of Korah didn’t die" (26:11). Readers answer in two main ways.

How Christians read it

Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.

A household stood with its head

Some read the households as sharing their fathers' judgment, as the Bible shows elsewhere with Achan, whose sons and daughters were taken with him (Joshua 7:24-25). The LORD had spoken of "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children" of "those who hate me" (Exodus 20:5), and here, after the warning to depart, the wives and children stood with Dathan and Abiram at the doors of their tents (16:26-27).

Joshua 7:24-25 · Exodus 20:5 · Numbers 16:26-27

Left with the Judge

Others keep to what the text itself raises. Moses and Aaron had asked, "shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?" (16:22), and the LORD answered by telling the rest to get away (16:24). Korah's sons were spared (26:11). What the text doesn't explain, they leave with "the Judge of all the earth" (Genesis 18:25).

Numbers 16:22 · Numbers 16:24 · Numbers 26:11 · Genesis 18:25

The verses

“He spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins!” So they went away from the tent of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side. Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood at the door of their tents with their wives, their sons, and their little ones.”
Numbers 16:26-27 · World English Bible
“The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all of Korah’s men, and all their goods.”
Numbers 16:32 · World English Bible
“Notwithstanding, the sons of Korah didn’t die.”
Numbers 26:11 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Numbers 16

Numbers 16: Who is holy

Korah said all the congregation were holy (16:3), and the LORD answered by showing whom he chose to come near (16:5, 16:40). The rebels' censers were beaten into a covering for the altar, as a memorial (16:38-40). And when the plague began, Aaron, the one they had complained against, ran into the crowd with incense and "stood between the dead and the living" (16:48).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions