"Korach the son of Yizhar, the son of Kehat,

the son of Levi"

(Numbers 16:1)

No doubt from Korach's perspective the timing was perfect. The seismic aftershocks of the debacle of the spies were still being felt. The nation was discouraged, their faith in Moshe's leadership had been repeatedly shaken, and Moshe himself must have wondered whether he was up for leading the people for another thirty nine years in the wilderness. Now was the time to strike.

Korach was a son of the distinguished family of Kehat, a Levite, and not just any Levite. Not only was Korach, as our sages tell us, a very wealthy man, in fact the wealthiest man of Israel, and not only was he a brilliant man, as we can witness for ourselves in the verses of Torah, but he personally had the exalted privilege of being responsible for the safekeeping and transportation of the Ark of the Covenant whenever Israel would travel with G-d in the desert from one encampment to the next. Certainly, should he take a stand against the failed leadership and self-evident cronyism of Moshe, as he perceived it, the people would gather around him: "You take too much upon yourselves, for the entire congregation are all holy, and HaShem is in their midst. So why do you raise yourselves above HaShem's assembly?" (Numbers 16:3) Korach took his self-serving message and reworked it as a selfless man-of-the-people call for the rights and dignity of all the people of Israel, from the most capable to the least. And who can argue with him? Are we not all the children of G-d , created in His image?

Moshe, for his part, read through Korach's false bravado and recognized at once the desperation which was motivating Korach: "Is it not enough that the G-d of Israel has distinguished you from the congregation of Israel to draw you near to Him, to perform the service in the Tabernacle of HaShem and to stand before the congregation to minister to them? He drew you near, and all your brothers, the sons of Levi with you, and now you seek the priesthood as well?" (ibid 16:9-10)

"Rav lachem - is it not enough." Moshe would use the phrase repeatedly in his confrontation with Korach. He understood, that far from wanting to 'democratize' the covenant between G-d and Israel, Korach wanted to replace the covenant with himself assuming the role not only of High Priest but of G-d Himself! The Kingdom of Korach and nothing less!

But where was Korach's cynical plan coming from? What was the origin of his negativity? What was the genesis of his hopelessness? When G-d's decree that the adults who left Egypt would never see the inside of the land of Israel but would perish in the desert, Korach's future plans of self aggrandizement collapsed. If he couldn't be a baron in the land of Israel, a captain of industry, a man of influence, a future king-maker, then what was left for him? What good was his wealth and his stature among a people that was going to die going nowhere at all. What benefit did he derive from overseeing the safe transport of the Ark of the Covenant, if at the end of the day the Ark was just going from nowhere to nowhere. Being responsible for the Ark that represented for Korach, not the light of G-d in the world, but the bleakness of his own numbered days, was a burden and an affront to Korach that he had no desire to bear. His populist power play was one last desperate attempt to extricate himself from being a servant of G-d and not the other way around.

In the end Korach got what he was after. He was swallowed up by the earth where he and his cohorts spend every day in darkness. It is the closed world with himself at the center, one in which the light of G-d never enters that Korach was ultimately after, whether he realized it or not.

Before the destruction of the first Holy Temple King Josiah hid the Ark of the Covenant within the hidden chambers beneath the Temple Mount so that it wouldn't be plundered by the Babylonians. There it has rested ever since. But the generations of Israel which have followed have faithfully fulfilled the mission that Korach so profoundly failed it. For more than two thousand years the children of Israel have borne in their heart and upon their shoulders the Ark of the Covenant, containing in it both the shattered tablets of the Law received at Sinai and the two tablets which superseded them, determined in each generation to return the Ark to its rightful place, the Holy of Holies in the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Unlike the myopic Korach who could not see past his own limited time on earth, Israel has marched forward with the knowledge that G-d's Covenant and the promise that it holds for humanity is bigger and more important than any one of us, and that its ultimate place of repose is dependent upon our commitment, even if we ourselves need to pass the blessed burden on to the next generation. Every time a Jew has mentioned Jerusalem in their prayers after a meal, or a bridegroom has shattered a glass under the wedding canopy with the words, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my chief joy," (Psalms 137:5-6) he is carrying the Ark of the Covenant one step closer to its destination. But more than the promise of the rebuilt Holy Temple has been kept alive by the children of Israel throughout the ages, it is the dream and longing for the Holy Temple that has kept Israel alive throughout the ages. The rise and fall of Korach bears the lesson of what happens when we place ourselves before our covenant with G-d , when Jerusalem, synonymous with the Holy Temple, is not our chief joy, but is subservient to our own shortsighted desires. Today, back in the land of Israel, the next destination for both ourselves and the Ark of the Covenant is back in the Holy of Holies. We will continue to bear the burden of the Ark with joy and determination, knowing that when we do set it down, both the Ark and we, the people of Israel, will be back where we belong. The Holy Temple!

Most scholars who accept a historical core of the exodus date this possible exodus group to the thirteenth century BCE at the time of Ramses II, with some instead dating it to the twelfth century BCE at the time of Ramses III. 

1.  Fine-grained lake sediment is disrupted and homogenized by high frequency p-waves. These waves break up sediment floccules and liquefy sediment layers. These waves attenuate quickly, so larger earthquakes near the Dead Sea cause the most sediment disturbance.

2.  Migowski et al, Recurrence Pattern of Holocene Earthquakes. Data from this paper were plotted to make the 4,000-year sediment chronology. The sediment core was drilled at the shore of the present lake near En Gedi.

3.  Deuteronomy 29:23; 32:32; Isaiah 1:9-10; Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 23:14; 49:18; 50:40; Lamentations 4:6; Ezekiel 16:46-50; Amos 4:11; Zephaniah 2:9.

4.  Deuteronomy 34:1-3; Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 48:34.

5.  Austin, S. A., G. W. Franz and E. G. Frost. 2000. Amos’s Earthquake: An Extraordinary Middle East Seismic Event of 750 B.C. International Geology Review. 42 (7): 657-671; Austin, S. 2010. The Scientific and Scriptural Impact of Amos’ Earthquake. Acts & Facts. 39 (2): 8-9.

6.  Josephus. 1961. The Wars of the Jews. Thackeray, H. St. J., trans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1.19.3 [§370].

7.  Observations of Dead Sea sediment made by Steven A. Austin in 2001.

8.  See Austin, S. A. and M. L. Strauss. 1999. Are Earthquakes Signs of the End Times?: A Geological and Biblical Response to an Urban Legend. Christian Research Journal. 21 (4): 30-39.

9.  Ibid.

* Dr. Austin is Senior Research Geologist, Logos Research Associates, Santa Ana, CA.