Numbers 16:28

And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) To do all these works.—i.e., to bring the people out of the land of Egypt, to exchange the first-born for the Levites, to consecrate Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, and generally to declare the will of the Lord to the people.

Benson Commentary

Numbers 16:28. All these works — As the bringing of the people out of Egypt; the conducting of them through the wilderness; the exercising authority among them; and giving laws to them concerning the priesthood.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:23-34 The seventy elders of Israel attend Moses. It is our duty to do what we can to countenance and support lawful authority when it is opposed. And those who would not perish with sinners, must come out from among them, and be separate. It was in answer to the prayer of Moses, that God stirred up the hearts of the congregation to remove for their own safety. Grace to separate from evil-doers is one of the things that accompany salvation. God, in justice, left the rebels to the obstinacy and hardness of their own hearts. Moses, by Divine direction, when all Israel were waiting the event, declares that if the rebels die a common death, he will be content to be called and counted an imposter. As soon as Moses had spoken the word, God caused the earth to open and swallow them all up. The children perished with their parents; in which, though we cannot tell how bad they might be to deserve it, or how good God might be otherwise to them; yet of this we are sure, that Infinite Justice did them no wrong. It was altogether miraculous. God has, when he pleases, strange punishments for the workers of iniquity. It was very significant. Considering how the earth is still in like manner loaded with the weight of man's sins, we have reason to wonder that it does not now sink under its load. The ruin of others should be our warning. Could we, by faith, hear the outcries of those that are gone down to the bottomless pit, we should give more diligence than we do to escape for our lives, lest we also come into their condemnation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Stood in the door of their tents - Apparently in contumacious defiance.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28-34. Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works—The awful catastrophe of the earthquake which, as predicted by Moses, swallowed up those impious rebels in a living tomb, gave the divine attestation to the mission of Moses and struck the spectators with solemn awe.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

All these works, to wit, which I have done, and for which I am traduced by these and such like wicked men, as the bringing of the people out of Egypt; the conducting of them through, and the keeping of them so long in, the wilderness; the exercising of power and authority among and over them; giving of laws to them, as about other things, so concerning the priesthood, which is the ground of the present quarrel; and, that which vexeth them most, that when they were upon the borders of Canaan, and ready to enter in, I should cause them to go back into this vast howling wilderness, and fix them there for forty years.

Of mine own mind; by pretending or usurping an authority which God gave me not; by feigning words or messages from God to establish my own inventions, and to comply with my own will or lust or interest, as I am now accused to have done. For this phrase, see Numbers 24:13 Ezekiel 13:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Moses said, hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works,.... To bring the people of Israel out of Egypt, to exchange the firstborn for the Levites, to make Aaron and his sons priests, to give the Levites to them, and to set Elizaphan over the Kohathites, things which these men found fault with, and questioned his authority for doing them:

for I have not done them of my own mind; or "not out of my heart" (q); he had not devised them himself, and done them of his own head, and in any arbitrary way, without the will of God or any authority from him, as these men suggested.

(q) "quod non de corde meo", Pagninus, Montanus.

Geneva Study Bible

And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own {l} mind.

(l) I have not invented them from my own brain.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 28. - Nor I have not done them of mine own mind. Literally, "that not of my heart", כִּיאּלֹא מִלִּבּי. Septuagint, ὅτι οὐκ ἀπ ἐμαυτου . Numbers 16:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The congregation obeyed; but Dathan and Abiram came and placed themselves in front of the tents, along with their wives and children, to see what Moses would do. Moses then announced the sentence: "By this shall he know that Jehovah hath sent me to do all these works, that not out of my own heart (i.e., that I do not act of my own accord). If these men die like all men (i.e., if these wicked men die a natural death like other men), and the oversight of all men take place over them (i.e., if the same providence watches over them as over all other men, and preserves them from sudden death), Jehovah hath not sent me. But if Jehovah create a creation (בריאה בּרא, i.e., work an extraordinary miracle), and the earth open its mouth and swallow them up, with all that belongs to them, so that they go down alive into hell, ye shall perceive that these men have despised Jehovah."