Numbers 16:35

And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(35) And there came out a fire from the Lord . . . —It was thus, as Bishop Wordsworth has observed, that “Korah and his company were punished by the same element as that by which they had sinned.”

Benson Commentary

Numbers 16:35. From the Lord — From the cloud, wherein the glory of the Lord appeared.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:35-40 A fire went out from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense, while Aaron, who stood with them, was preserved alive. God is jealous of the honour of his own institutions, and will not have them invaded. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. The censers are devoted, and, as all devoted things, must be made serviceable to the glory of God. This covering of the altar would remind the children of Israel of this event, that others might hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously. They brought destruction on themselves both in body and soul. Thus all who break the law and neglect the gospel choose and love death.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare the marginal references The fire came out from the sanctuary or the altar.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

35. there came out a fire from the Lord—that is, from the cloud. This seems to describe the destruction of Korah and those Levites who with him aspired to the functions of the priesthood. (See Nu 26:11, 58; 1Ch 6:22, 37).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

From the Lord; i.e. from the cloud, wherein the glory of the Lord appeared, Numbers 16:19, to give sentence in this cause.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And there came out a fire from the Lord,.... Flashes of lightning from the cloud in which he was:

and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense; not that it reduced them to ashes, but took away their lives, struck them dead at once, in like manner as Nadab and Abihu were, who though said to be devoured by the fire, yet their bodies remained, Leviticus 10:2; and is often the case of persons killed by lightning; though Josephus (a) thinks they were so consumed as that their bodies were no more seen, and who is express for it that Korah perished with them in this manner; which is not improbable, since he took his censer and offered incense with them, and was the ringleader of them, and the person that contended with Aaron for the priesthood, which was to be determined in this way; and though he is not mentioned it may be concluded, as Aben Ezra observes, by an argument from the lesser to the greater, that if the men he drew in perished, much more he himself; and the same writer observes, that in the song of the Red sea, no mention is made of the drowning of Pharaoh in it, only of his chariots and his host, and yet he himself was certainly drowned: now these men burning incense which belonged only to the priests of the Lord, were by just retaliation consumed by fire, and which made it plainly appear they were not the priests of the Lord; and the judgment on them was the more remarkable, that Moses and Aaron, who stood by them, remained unhurt. This was an emblem of the vengeance of eternal fire, of everlasting burnings, Jde 1:11.

(a) Antiq. l. 4. c. 3. sect. 4.

Geneva Study Bible

And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

35. The sin of Korah’s company was the same as that of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:1-2), and their punishment was the same. ‘The gainsaying of Korah’ is referred to as a typical sin in Judges 11.

36–40 [Heb. 17:1–15]. The fire-pans were made into a covering of the altar, as a memorial of the incident. As Numbers 16:40 shews, this section is written from the later point of view found in Numbers 16:8-11; Numbers 16:16-17. The writer who inserted them took the test of the fire-pans as proving the superiority of priests to Levites, not of Levites to laymen. (In the Heb. Bible Numbers 16:36 forms the beginning of ch. 17)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 35. - There came out a fire from the Lord. The fire probably flashed out from the sanctuary with the destructive force of lightning. The two hundred and fifty men. These had remained swinging their censers before the gate of the tabernacle while Moses and (presumably) Korah himself had gone to the camp of Reuben. Numbers 16:35

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The other 250 rebels, who were probably still in front of the tabernacle, were then destroyed by fire which proceeded from Jehovah, as Nadab and Abihu had been before (Leviticus 10:2).