Neither murmur you, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
As some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer, i.e, the angel by whom God inflicted punishment on the Hebrews for murmuring, because Korah and his followers were swallowed up alive by the earth. Fourteen thousand seven hundred perished by fire (see Numbers 16:30, Numbers 16:25, Numbers 16:40, Numbers 16:45; Wisd18:20; Anselm in loco). This angel seems to have been Michael, the leader of the people, the giver of the law on Sinai and its vindicator, and a type of Christ, as was said just now (see Exodus 23:21). Others suppose that this "destroyer" was an evil angel or a devil, and refer to Psalm 78:49. But the Psalmist is speaking of the plague sent on the Egyptians, but Paul of those that God inflicted on the Hebrews. Besides, it is truer to say that the plagues were inflicted on the Egyptians by good angels, not by evil ones; for, as S. Augustine says, when commenting in Psalm 78:49, it is well known that it was by good angels that Moses turned the water into blood, and produced frogs and lice; for it was by these miraculous punishments that Moses and the good angels strove against the magicians of Pharaoh and the devils: hence at the third miracle of the lice they exclaimed, "This is the finger of God." The good angels are called, in Psalm 78:49, "evil," as inflicters of evil.
The Hebrews murmured very often in the wilderness, and nearly always were punished by God. He thus wished to show that murmuring and rebellion are worse than other sins in His sight. Song of Solomon , in Num. xi, He slew those who murmured through fleshly lust, and the place was therefore called "the graves of lusts." In the same way all who murmured because of the report of the spies, who said that Canaan was a land strongly fortressed, were excluded from it, and perished in the wilderness; and of600 ,000 , Joshua and Caleb alone entered it (Num. xiv29). So were Korah and his followers punished clearly and severely.
