Numbers 26:11 MEANING

(11) Notwithstanding the children of Korah died not.--See Notes on Numbers 16:27; Numbers 16:32.

Verse 11. - The children of Korah died not. The confused nature of the narrative in chapter 16 is well exemplified by this statement; we should certainly have supposed from Numbers 16:32 that Korah's sons had perished with him, if we were not here told to the contrary. The sons of Korah are frequently mentioned among the Levites, and Samuel himself would seem to have been of them (see on 1 Chronicles 6:22, 28, 33-38, and titles to Psalm 42, 88, etc.); it is, however, slightly doubtful whether the Kohathite Korah of 1 Chronicles 6:22, the ancestor of Samuel, is the same as the Izharite Korah, the ancestor of Heman, in 1 Chronicles 6:38.

26:1-51 Moses did not number the people but when God commanded him. We have here the families registered, as well as the tribes. The total was nearly the same as when numbered at mount Sinai. Notice is here taken of the children of Korah; they died not, as the children of Dathan and Abiram; they seem not to have joined even their own father in rebellion. If we partake not of the sins of sinners, we shall not partake of their plagues.Notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not. Neither of the pestilence, nor by fire, nor by the swallowing up of the earth; they not being in the counsel of their father, but followed the doctrine of Moses the prophet, as the Targum of Jonathan; they either disliked their father's scheme, or, if they engaged with him in it, they repented and departed from him, and were not present when the judgments of God came upon him and his company; there were several of his posterity who were singers in the times of David, and to whom many of the psalms were sent to be sung.