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Dathan and Abiram

Reubenites, sons of Eliab, who join Korah's revolt in Numbers 16 and whose grievance is a different one from his. Korah is a Levite and wants the priesthood; Dathan and Abiram never mention priesthood at all. Their complaint (16:12-14) is about land and leadership — and it contains the most startling sentence in the chapter, in which they call EGYPT 'a land flowing with milk and honey', the Torah's own formula for Canaan, and accuse Moses of bringing them out of it to kill them. They refuse a summons twice with the same three words, 'we will not come up', and die standing in the doors of their own tents when the ground opens. ⚠ Deuteronomy 11:6 (not yet on these pages) retells the day naming only these two and not Korah at all — one of three witnesses to the event that do not agree about who died how.

in the text Num 16:12
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