Commentaria in Numeros
Hence it is plain enough that they were damned for ever and thrust down into hell; for that is here clearly said. Add that they, in flagrant crime, were suddenly swallowed up by the fury of God: whence they do not seem to have had spirit or time for repentance. These reasons, however, do not wholly conclude: for by hell Purgatory, and the limbo of the Fathers, could be understood. For they could, in the very descent, through so great a disaster, be pricked with compunction, repent and come to themselves, says Abulensis: this was possible; but it is hardly probable that it so happened. Whence Epiphanius, Jerome, Bede, and from them Bellarmine, book IV On the Soul of Christ, chap. x, hold that they descended into the hell of the damned. See here how rebel murmurers are punished: for, as St. Ambrose says, epistle 82: “The earth, bellowing in the midst of the people, is rent, a gulf opens into the deep, the guilty are snatched away, and are so removed from all the elements of this world that they should contaminate neither the air by breath, nor heaven by sight, nor the sea by touch, nor the earth by a sepulchre.”
You will ask whether these who went down alive arrived alive in hell? Some assert it, and it is probable: for the words of Scripture here bear this on their face. But the contrary is more probable, namely that they did not arrive alive in hell, but began to descend alive, so that “they went down alive” signifies an inchoate act, not a perfect one. For the earth devouring them, and presently closing itself, they died on the way, and there the bodies remained, the souls descending into hell. The first reason is that the universal law of death is passed on all men: for, as is said in Hebrews ix, 27, “it is appointed unto men once to die,” from which law no one is to be exempted unless something else compels. Again, the law of resurrection is established for all mortals: therefore these also will one day rise again; therefore they died, and did not remain alive: otherwise their bodies would now be immortal in hell, and would not rise on the day of judgment. Thirdly, Moses signifies the same when he says in verse 29:
They shall perish by a death not usual, but new and unwonted; and presently: “But if the Lord do a new thing, that the earth opening her mouth swallow them down, and all things that belong to them, and they go down alive into hell, you shall know that they have blasphemed the Lord.” For the people could not know that they went down alive, that is, arrived in hell: but for this it was enough to see the earth gaping open and swallowing them, so that they began to descend alive toward hell: for so it appeared to all, and all who saw it thought and said that they had descended alive into hell. For Scripture speaks in the common manner of men. So Abulensis, Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius.
A like death will punish Antichrist, of whom these rebels were forerunners and a type. For of him and his false prophet it is said, Apocalypse xix, 20: “These two were cast alive into the pool of fire.” On which see Francis Ribera in the same place.
“And the ground closed upon them.” For the ground, or earth, those being swallowed up, presently closed itself and its mouth, or gap, again.
Verse 35. “And a fire coming out from the Lord destroyed the two hundred and fifty men that offered the incense.” These 250 men came with their censers to the Sanctuary, to which Core, Dathan, Abiron and Hon were unwilling to come, and as they were taking coals from the altar of holocausts on which to lay the incense, to be put in the Holy and burned on the altar of incense, forthwith, before they entered the Holy, fire sent by God from the altar of holocausts leapt upon them and burned them. Whence what is here said, “that offered the incense,” understand: who wished and attempted to offer (a like phrase was in verse 33): for they had not yet offered, nay, had not yet entered the Holy, God not willing that they should contaminate it by their so infamous guilt and punishment. At the same time at which these 250 were struck with fire in the tabernacle of the Lord, Core, Dathan, Abiron and Hon were swallowed up by the earth at home with their tents, as I said on verse 34. See how those are punished who handle sacred things and arrogate the priesthood to themselves, when they have been neither called nor chosen by God to it.
Verse 37. “Take up the censers that lie in the burning,” in the place of the burning, where the 250 chiefs were burned.
Verses 37 and 38. “Because they are sanctified in the deaths of the sinners,” as a monument of crime and of vengeance, because they themselves were offered to God by sacred fire, and the incense which the 250 chiefs laid on them, to burn it to God on the altar of incense, although they had not yet burned it, being prevented by death: offered, I say, to God “in the deaths of the sinners,” that is, at the time when God punished these 250 sinning and rebel men with death, striking them with fire.
These censers, therefore, were as it were sanctified: first, by the contact of the sacred fire and of the incense of the rebels, which the 250 chiefs laid on them: for this is what is here added: “Because incense hath been offered in them to the Lord.” Second, they were sanctified by the holy justice and vengeance which God exercised on the chiefs who abused them, and this is signified by “in the deaths of the sinners.” Third, they were sanctified, that is, they were commanded to be offered to the tabernacle, and there kept for the holy and perpetual memory of this vengeance: whence Vatablus renders from the Hebrew, these censers, or thuribles, are of sinners for their souls, so that they should be kept as a monument of the sinners who through them lost their soul, that is, their life.
Verse 41. “And the next day all the multitude of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying: You have killed the people of the Lord,” namely a part of the people, the 250 men, and Core, Dathan, Abiron and Hon, with their families.
Verses 42 and 43. “And when a sedition was rising, etc., Moses and Aaron fled to the tabernacle.” For this is the safe asylum in every persecution: and this is the great fruit of persecution, that it compels us to go to God. Whence James the hermit, when the demon threatened him and said: “I will inflict on thee such infamy that nobody will wish to look at thee,” answered: “I will thank thee, for unwillingly thou wilt benefit thine enemy, in that thou wilt make me dwell more in the remembrance of God. For the more leisure I have, the more I am occupied with the solitude.” So Theodoret in the Philotheus, chap. xxi.
Verse 45. “Get you away from the midst of this multitude,” as if to say: Do you, O Moses and Aaron, flee outside the camp, that I may destroy all the camps of the murmurers round about.
“And as they lay on the ground,” Moses and Aaron making supplication for the people; whence it follows: “Moses said to Aaron: Take the censer, etc., put incense upon it, etc., and pray for them.” Moses said this as a Prophet, inspired by God, by the will of God: for otherwise it was lawful to burn incense only on the altar of incense, and not outside it, among the people and the corpses of the slain, as Aaron here did, God dispensing.
Verse 46. “For now wrath is gone out from the Lord, and the plague rageth.” “And” signifies “that is”: for the wrath that went out from the Lord was nothing other than the raging plague; this plague was of fire, which of the people fourteen thousand seven hundred consumed. Whether the bodies of these were wholly consumed by fire and reduced to ashes, as Abulensis holds, or only burnt, is not clear: for neither is expressed here. See how murmuring is here again punished by fire.
Verse 50. “The destruction,” the plague of fire and burning already mentioned.
Others understand by this word here a corpse, so that it must be translated, “among their corpses.”
In the Hebrew it is, when the people gathered itself for sedition, and turned themselves to slay them (Moses and Aaron), as Jonathan adds.
For “going quickly,” the Hebrew is, “and make to go, carry,” namely the pan or censer. For the word seems to be an imperative hiphil, not a participle kal.