Numbers 26:9-11

The earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up.

Solemn monitors against sin

Sin and infamy cling to families long after the actors have passed away. Parents ought to strive above all to leave to their children the heritage of a good name. Sin and infamy are long lived; as in the verse of our text, many years after the descendants are reminded of their ancestor’s crime. Their sin was to oppose Moses and God--using their influence as men of note to create a rebellion. God visited them for their sin--“And they became a sign” (see chap. 16.). They became “symbols,” “beacons.” God made use of them to teach great lessons. Visitations like that have tongues; they speak to us from God.

I. The insidious character of sin. Sin grows upon us; never trifle with it; safety in the opposing it. As the moth, dazzled with the light, &c., ends in being scorched or burnt, so it ever is with those who trifle with sin and parley with temptation.

II. They warn us of the terrible evil and danger of sin. Sin becomes our greatest curse; we have, indeed, nothing else to fear.

III. They show us what a curse bad men are to their families and others. If there is any manhood left in one, this thought must arrest his attention.

IV. They show us God’s desire to benefit man. (David Lloyd.)

The victims of sin a warning to others

I. A warning against the commission of sin.

II. A warning against association with sinners.

III. A warning against tempting others. (Lay Preacher.)

Notwithstanding the children of Korah died not.--

Children that live

“Notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not.” May we not read it--that though the sire dies the progeny lives? There is a continuity of evil in the world. We only cut off the tops of iniquities, their deep roots we do not get at; we pass the machine over the sward, and cut off the green tops of things that are offensive to us; but the juicy root is struck many inches down into the earth, and our backs will hardly be turned, and the click of the iron have ceased, before those roots are asserting themselves in new and obvious growths. Iniquity is not to be shaved off the earth--ironed and mowed away like an obnoxious weed--it must be uprooted, torn right up by every thinnest, frailest fibre of its bad self, and then, having been torn out, left for the fire of the sun to deal with--the fire of mid-day is against it and will consume it. And thus only can growths of evil be eradicated and destroyed. It is an awful thing to live! You cannot tell where influence begins, how it operates, or how it ends. The boy sitting next you is partly yourself, and he cannot help it, You cannot turn round and say, “You must look after yourself as I had to do.” That is a fool’s speech. You can never shake off the responsibility of having helped in known and unknown ways and degrees to make that boy what he is. Life is not a surface matter, a loose pebble lying on the road that men can take up and lay down again without any particular harm being done. When the boy drinks himself into madness, he may be but expressing the influences wrought within him by three generations. When the young man tells a lie, he may be surprised at his own audacity, and feel as if he were rather a tool and a victim than a person and a responsible agent--as if generations of liars were blackening his young lips with their falsehoods. When this youth is restive and will not go to the usual church, do not blame the modern spirit of scepticism and restlessness, but go sharply into the innermost places of your own heart, and see how far you have bolted the church doors against your son, or made a place which he would be ashamed to be seen in. Then there is a bright side to all this view. I can, now that I have got my rough reading done, turn this “notwithstanding “into a symbol of hope, a light of history; I can make high and inspiring uses of it. I will blot out the word, “Korah,” and fill in other names, and then the moral lesson of the text will expand itself into gracious meanings, rise above us like a firmament crowded with innumerable and brilliant lights. In days long ago they killed the martyrs--notwithstanding, the children of the martyrs died not. There the light begins to come; there I hear music lifting up sweetest voice of testimony and hope. So, in all the ages, one generation passeth away and another generation cometh, and still Christ’s following enlarges; on the whole, he sums up into higher figures year by year. Not that I care for census-religion, not that I would number people for the purpose of ascertaining Christ’s position in the world. The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation; is not a matter of census-reckoning or statistic-returns; it is a matter of spiritual quality, inner manhood, meaning and attitude of the soul; and amid all sin, struggle, doubt, difficulty, darkness, the kingdom moves. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The children of Korah

These sons of Korah were afterwards in their prosperity eminently serviceable to the Church, being employed by David as singers in the house of the Lord; hence many psalms are said to be for the sons of Korah; and perhaps they were made to bear his name so long after, rather than the name of any other of their ancestors, for warning to themselves, and as an instance of the power of God, which brought those choice fruits even out of that bitter root. The children of families that have been stigmatised, should endeavour by their eminent virtues to bear away the reproach of their fathers. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)