You, Korah, and all your followers are to do as follows: Take censers,
Parallel translations
- WEB Do this: take censers, Korah, and all his company;
- KJV This do; Take you censers, Korah, and all his company;
- NKJV Do this: Take censers, Korah and all your company;
- NASB Do this: take censers for yourselves, Korah and your whole group,
- NLT Korah, you and all your followers must prepare your incense burners.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Moses commanded Korah and his company to take censers for a test before the LORD. The dispute over priesthood would be decided in God's presence.
Overview
Moses sets up a test involving censers, the priestly instruments for offering incense, to let God reveal whom he accepts. By proposing this, Moses places the outcome wholly in God's hands. The episode underscores that no one may presume to approach God in worship except as he ordains, a truth fulfilled in Christ, the only acceptable way to the Father.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Lev 10:1Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense, and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to His command.
- 1 Kgs 18:21–23Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him. But if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people did not answer a word.
- Num 16:35–40And fire came forth from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.
- Lev 16:12–13Then he must take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, and take them inside the veil.
- Num 16:46–48Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has come out from the LORD; the plague has begun.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 16:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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