ויקח קרח, he approached;

בני ראובן, some of the members of that tribe.

קריאי מועד, the ones who had been referred to in Numbers 1,16 as קרואי העדה. They would be invited to preside over litigation on the days appointed for this (מועד).

HE FELL ON HIS FACE. In prayer, and there it was said to him what he would say to Korah.

לכן אתה וכל עדתך, a reference to the insurgents described previously as הנועדים על ה'.

ויאמרו לא נעלה, to be judged by you or your court. The expression עליה occurs frequently in conjunction with going to a court, to a judge. We find it in Deuteronomy 25,7 ועלתה יבמתו השערה, “his (the deceased’s) widow shall go up to the judges to protest her brother-in-law’s refusal to marry her.” It also occurs in this sense in Judges 4,5 where Boaz is reported as going up to the court to settle the matter of who will marry Ruth.

גם השתרר, the word גם in the Torah appears quite often as an introduction to something opposite or totally different from what had preceded it. Our verse is an example of such use, the line כי תשתרר ילינו גם השתרר meaning “do you now also want to lord it over us?” Another such example is found in Exodus 12,32 where Pharaoh begs Moses to bless him, using the word גם, although this word in that context certainly is not a continuation of any previously discussed thought. Genesis 29,30 as well as Numbers 22,33 where the angel said to Bileam גם הרגתי אותך “I would also have killed you,” is totally out of keeping with the standard meaning of the word גם when it is translated as “also.” [the angel had not killed the ass as yet. Ed.]

?העיני האנשים ההם תנקר, “do you think that these people who have risen up against you do not have eyes with which they can see this trap that you led us into when you took us out of Egypt, a good land, to bring us to this miserable desert to die here? You certainly did not fulfill your promise to bring us to a land flowing with milk and honey which was the reason that we followed you from Egypt. All that awaits them now are 40 years in this desert in which to await their death.

לא נעלה. This is the reason why we refuse to come up and be judged by you and your court. This is a typical construction known as כלל ופרט וכלל, stating a general principle, illustrating it with examples, and then reaffirming the general principle having supplied the reasons supporting the theory stated as a general principle.

אל תפן; the word תפן is derived from the root פנה, as in Genesis 43,34 ותרב משאת בנימין “Binyamin’s gift was more substantial,” after the Torah first described Joseph giving gifts to the other brothers, but introducing Binyamin’s gifts with the words מאת פניו, indicating a “turn around” by treating Binyamin differently than the other brothers. We must view the expression אל תפן as אל תפנה, seeing the vowel pattern under the letters תפ are tzeyreh followed by segol. If the Torah had written אל תפן with the vowel pattern segol, segol, it would have been tafneh, i.e. a causative mode “do not bring about a change.”

לא חמור אחד מהם נשאתי, I have not even appropriated a single donkey of theirs (the entire people) as a form of taxation as do most others rulers from all of their subjects. Seeing that this is so, on what do they base their claim that I behave like a ruler, a despot? If the vowel pattern under the word אחד would not have been “segol” followed by “kametz,” but two successive vowels “patach,” the meaning would be: “I have not taken away a single one of their privately owned asses.” It would have been a construct mode as in Genesis 26,10 אחד העם, i.e. “one of the common people.”

א-לוהי הרוחות, You are conversant with all spirits and hearts, knowing which of the people did not have a share in this sin.

וילך אל דתן ואבירם, hoping against hope that they might repent.

כי לא מלבי, the idea to assign the offering of incense to them did not originate with me,

לא ה' שלחני, but I had had taken it upon myself to appoint them as the ones with the monopoly to offer incense in the Tabernacle.

(אם בריאה (חדשה) ה' בארץ), a reference to another example of a ”creative” act by G’d, as for instance the one described in Jeremiah 31,21. Moses speaks of the death of Korach, as opposed to that of Nadav and Avihu, being by means of a new act of creation.

נסו לקולם, when they cried out at the time when they fell into the bowels of the earth. Compare Jeremiah 49,21 לקול נפלם רעשה ארץ, “the earth itself shook when it heard the sound of their downfall.”