God’s Word for You
Numbers 26:7-11 The Sons of Korah
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, December 8, 2021
7 These were the Reubenite clans. Those who were registered totaled 43,730. 8 The son of Pallu was Eliab. 9 The sons of Eliab were Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram. (These were the same Dathan and Abiram who were chosen leaders of the community who fought against Moses and Aaron along with the followers of Korah, when they fought against the LORD. 10 The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah, when his followers died and when the fire consumed the two hundred fifty men. So they became a warning sign. 11 However, the sons of Korah did not die out.)
While the Reubenite family count is being recorded, Moses recalls an important detail that helps us understand many other passages of the Scriptures. The second of Reuben’s four sons was Pallu (Genesis 46:9), and his descendant in Egypt was Eliab (Numbers 16:1; Deuteronomy 11:6). It was out of Eliab’s family that some of the rebels, Dathan and Abiram, came. They and their families were destroyed just as Moses remembers: the earth opened and in they fell, along with Korah and most of his family. Others were burned by a destroying fire.
However, Moses notes that some of Korah’s descendants survived. They had not followed the others in their unbelief and rebellion. In some parts of the Bible they are called Korahites (1 Chronicles 9:19; 2 Chronicles 20:19) but a select number of them called themselves “the sons of Korah” in the Psalms (see the headings of Psalm 42, 44-49, 84-85 and 87-88). One Psalm, the 88th, also lists Heman the Ezrahite, but that doesn’t mean that Heman was one of the Sons of Korah. He is also called the king’s seer (1 Chronicles 25:5), and his listing in that Psalm is probably more as a collaborator, the way many of our hymns have the words written by one person and a tune written by someone else. For example, our hymn, “Be Still My Soul” has a tune written by composer Jean Sibelius, but the words were written by Catharina A. von Schliegel and translated into English by the poet Jane L. Borthwick. Von Schliegel lived in the Eighteenth century, Borthwick lived in the Nineteenth century, and Sibelius lived in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries.
Why did those surviving sons of Korah and their descendants retain his name, virtually replacing their own identities as far as we’re concerned and superimposing that of their infamous ancestor? Their act proclaims both law and gospel to us. It proclaims the law because Korah was judged for his sin, rebellion and unbelief. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and Korah and his family were put to death by God personally for their sin, in part as a sign to the rest of Israel that Moses was God’s prophet and Aaron was God’s high priest. This is a warning we still learn from, especially when we are tempted to violate the Fourth Commandment, whether pertaining to family, church, or state.
Yet the retention of “Korah” in their family designation also preaches the gospel to us. This is because some of Korah’s family was spared. They might have been killed along with Korah, simply on account of his sins. Sometimes Christians suffer because of the sins of other people, through no fault of their own, and sometimes Christians even die without deserving death (from a human perspective). David’s dear friend Jonathan perished with his father Saul on Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:2), not on account of any sin Jonathan committed, but because he was loyal to his king and served him to the end, even laying down his life for him (1 John 3:16; John 15:13). By using their ancestor’s name, such as they do in Psalm 42:1, the Sons of Korah constantly reminded their hearers and us that God is merciful. There would be no sons of Korah at all without God’s mercy, and for this reason the Sons of Korah chose to serve God as closely as they could. They became a family of musicians in the service of the temple. They teach us to bear patiently the crosses we must take up, because we do so with joy that we serve our Savior, who bore our cross willingly even to his death. We are saved sinners (for that is surely what “Sons of Korah” meant to those men), and we serve because we have a place in heaven.
Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to your God to order and provide,
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still my soul; your best, your heav’nly friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
“Be Still My Soul,” based in part on Psalm 42
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.