Overcoming Betrayal

Parashat Korach, Numbers 16:1–18:32

Matthew Absolon, Beth Tfilah, Hollywood, FL

Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men. And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” (Num 16:1–3)

How unsettling it must have been for Moses to see this group of distinguished leaders walking towards him with defiance in their eyes. One can only wonder what it must’ve been like for Moses to be challenged with open mutiny by the very people he called friends. Did this betrayal take Moses by surprise?

There is an unfortunate tendency amongst the children of God to squabble and to fight amongst ourselves. This fratricide is not unique to the Jewish people. It is endemic to the human experience. Selfish ambition, pride, vainglory, and oftentimes outright jealousy are diseases for which there is no eradicating vaccine.

There are many victims in times like this. The individual members of the community, the family members and associates looking on, and perhaps the most misunderstood of all is the very leader against whom the mutiny is directed. Betrayal and mutiny are traumatic events in the growth cycle of every leader.

In our reading of the text it is critical that we do not sanitize its human reality. Korach and Abiram were not Moses’s enemies. They were co-leaders with Moses, “well known men.” Moses would have known them personally. He knew their wives. He knew their sons and daughters. He celebrated with them at the birth of their grandchildren. These people are not “others,” they are not “them over there.” They are our people, God’s people, Moses’s flesh and blood brothers.

One can only imagine the heartbreak that Moses must have endured as he watched the fallout and collateral damage that resulted in the actions from a handful of vainglorious men. The wives. The children. The grandchildren. All gone in a moment of ghastly horror.

It is clear that the text wants us to know that Moses was angry with Korach and his revolutionaries. It even leaves us a transcript of Moses’s conversation with the Lord: “Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed one of them” (16:15). But unlike the despotic kings who were to follow (such as Ahab and Herod), Moses did not allow his anger towards a handful of men to harden his love for God’s people.

In verse 22 we see the heart of Moses come bursting forth in what is clearly a test from the Lord, who threatens to consume the whole congregation (Num 16:20–21). “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?” Moses loved God’s people. Moreover, he did not allow the sharp pain of betrayal to fan the flames of bitterness towards others.

This test upon Moses echoes a similar conversation between God and our father Abraham in Genesis 18. God says “shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (Gen 18:17). Or HaChaim astutely points out that the people of Sodom whom God is going to destroy are the same people who Abraham rescued in the matter of Lot’s captivity (Gen 14). The heart of Abraham our father is tested to see if he has the attribute of divine mercy, by seeking the salvation of a people he rescued, despite the cry of their violent sins against God and their persecution against Lot.

And so we see this parallel with Moses, the savior of Israel. Moses is given every good reason for God to execute justice upon our forefathers, but he responds with the same heart of Abraham, petitioning for God’s mercy to triumph over his justice.

Nor did Moses allow betrayal to cause resentment for his calling. After all, Moses is the common denominator. And it is the calling of the Lord upon Moses’s life that is being challenged. As Moses unequivocally deduces, “Therefore it is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered together.”

In the course of this one dreadful day Moses was the victim of slander and character assassination; his innocent brother was attacked; his relationship with God was called into question; his God-ordained calling was publicly challenged; he was accused of despotism; he was accused of nepotism; he was accused of narcissism.

Yet we see Moses respond with two overarching virtues: first, his love for the people of God. And second, he remained faithful to his calling. Despite the lies that were cleverly crafted about him, he held fast to God’s unfailing love and his unerring truth. The great Leo Tolstoy comments to this end: “The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man” (Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You).

Moses was judged unfairly by men who were filled with a vision from the devil instead of a vision from God. Moses’s response offers to us a blueprint and a meditation on the qualities we should strive for in godly leadership—that despite the deep hurt of betrayal, and its accompanying anger, we must always maintain love for God’s people and faithfulness to God’s calling in our lives.

Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV).