Numbers 16:33

They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:23-34 The seventy elders of Israel attend Moses. It is our duty to do what we can to countenance and support lawful authority when it is opposed. And those who would not perish with sinners, must come out from among them, and be separate. It was in answer to the prayer of Moses, that God stirred up the hearts of the congregation to remove for their own safety. Grace to separate from evil-doers is one of the things that accompany salvation. God, in justice, left the rebels to the obstinacy and hardness of their own hearts. Moses, by Divine direction, when all Israel were waiting the event, declares that if the rebels die a common death, he will be content to be called and counted an imposter. As soon as Moses had spoken the word, God caused the earth to open and swallow them all up. The children perished with their parents; in which, though we cannot tell how bad they might be to deserve it, or how good God might be otherwise to them; yet of this we are sure, that Infinite Justice did them no wrong. It was altogether miraculous. God has, when he pleases, strange punishments for the workers of iniquity. It was very significant. Considering how the earth is still in like manner loaded with the weight of man's sins, we have reason to wonder that it does not now sink under its load. The ruin of others should be our warning. Could we, by faith, hear the outcries of those that are gone down to the bottomless pit, we should give more diligence than we do to escape for our lives, lest we also come into their condemnation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

All the men ... - Not his sons (see Numbers 26:11), but all belonging to him who had associated themselves with him in this rebellion.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28-34. Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works—The awful catastrophe of the earthquake which, as predicted by Moses, swallowed up those impious rebels in a living tomb, gave the divine attestation to the mission of Moses and struck the spectators with solemn awe.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Into the pit, i.e. into the earth, which first opened itself to receive them, and then shut itself to destroy them, and transmit them to further punishment.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

They, and all that appertained unto them, went down alive into the pit,.... The grave which the opening earth made for them, they and their families:

and the earth closed upon them; and covered them over; this it did of itself, as Aben Ezra remarks: this was a wonderful instance of almighty power, that it should open in such large fissures as to swallow up such a number of men, with their tents, goods, and cattle, and then close again so firmly, as not to have the least appearance upon it of what had happened, as Josephus observes (z):

and they perished from among the congregation; and had a name and a place no more with them.

(z) Antiqu. ut supra, (l. 4. c. 3.) sect. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Numbers 16:33

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

And immediately the earth clave asunder, and swallowed them up, with their families and all their possessions, and closed above them, so that they perished without a trace from the congregation. אתם refers to the three ringleaders. "Their houses;" i.e., their families, not their tents, as in Numbers 18:31; Exodus 12:3. "All the men belonging to Korah" were his servants; for, according to Numbers 26:11, his sons did not perish with him, but perpetuated his family (Numbers 26:58), to which the celebrated Korahite singers of David's time belonged (1 Chronicles 6:18-22; 1 Chronicles 9:19).