And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, You take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: why then lift you up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?
Read Chapter 16
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Let the dissidents learn to fear the agitation of the Lord and to obey the priests. What does this mean? Did the cleft in the earth not swallow Dathan and Abiram and Korah because of their dissention? For when Korah and Dathan and Abiram incited men to rebel against Moses and Aaron and separate themselves from them, they rose up and said, “Let it be sufficient for you that the whole assembly is holy, every one of them, and that the Lord is in them.” Whence the Lord was angered and spoke to the entire assembly. He examined them. Since “the Lord knows who are his,” he led the holy ones to himself. Those whom he did not choose he did not lead to himself. And the Lord commanded that Korah and all those who had risen up with him against Moses and Aaron, the priests of the Lord, select for themselves altars and put incense upon them, in order that the one elected by the Lord might himself be confirmed as holy among the Levites of the Lord. And Moses said to Korah, “Listen to me, sons of Lev...
The argument that they acknowledge the same God the Father, the same son Christ and the same Holy Spirit is no use to them either. Korah, Dathan and Abiram acknowledged the same God as Aaron the priest and Moses. They lived by the same law and the same religious practices, invoking the one true God who should properly be worshiped and invoked. All the same, when they went beyond the limits of their own ministry and claimed for themselves authority to perform sacrifices in opposition to Aaron the priest, who had received the lawful priesthood by the favor of God and the ordination of the Lord, they were struck from on high and at once paid the penalty for their unlawful attempt. The sacrifices which they offered impiously and unlawfully against God’s will and ordinance could be neither valid nor efficacious.
Thus Korah, Dathan and Abiram, who tried to assume for themselves in opposition to Moses and Aaron the freedom to sacrifice, immediately paid the penalty for their efforts. The earth, breaking its bonds, opened up into a deep chasm, and the opening of the receding ground swallowed up the standing and the living. And not only did the anger of the indignant God strike those who had been the authors [of the revolt], but also fire that went out from the Lord in speedy revenge consumed others, participants and sharers in the same madness, who had been joined together with them in the daring plan. Clearly [this] warned and showed that whatever the wicked attempt by human will to destroy God’s plan is done against God.
Let it be enough. Hebrew rab, "too much you take upon you "or "suffice it for you "Septuagint.
Holy ones, as deserving of the priesthood as yourselves, ver. 10. Why then would you treat them as your inferiors? We will throw off the yoke, and assert our just rights. (Calmet)
On the same plea, Luther (de abrog. Missa,) rejects all ecclesiastical hierarchy, and will have no distinct priesthood, because all Christians are called priests, (Apocalypse i.) and a holy priesthood, 1 Peter ii. 5. (Worthington)
But they do not take notice that the apostle immediately explains himself, by saying, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, and to declare the virtues of Christ; in which sense, they are also styled a kingly priesthood, 1 Peter ii. 9. (Haydock)