and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up together with Korah when that company died; at the time the fire devoured two hundred fifty men, and they became a sign.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 10. Miracle. Hebrew “they became a sign,” of reproach, and a memorial of God’s just judgments, who caused the earth to swallow up Core and his companions alive, by a most disgraceful kind of death, to which the faithless vestal virgins were condemned at Rome, being buried alive; while those who had offered incense were consumed by fire. Many of the ancients assert that Core was also burnt, meaning perhaps by the fire of hell; to which he descended. Josep. iv. 3.—Others have thought that the children of Core were swallowed up with their father. But this is not true, with respect to some of them at least, ( Bible.) who by a miracle of divine grace and goodness, were preserved from joining in his sedition; ( Calmet.) while Core, his wife and servants, all concurred to shew them such a pernicious example. Bible.—Lyran. and the Rabbins tell us, that the children stopped to intreat their father to repent; and while the earth opened under them, God supported them in the air, and gave them the spirit of prophecy; so that they sung, (Psalms 45) God is our refuge, and so forth, or, according to others, the Psalms 41 which has their name in the title. But these accounts are to be received with caution. The Samaritan text, fuerunt in fugam, ( Calmet.) may be translated, “out of this world they fled away, (11) and the sons of Core did not perish.”