Numbers 16:35 (BSB)

And fire came forth from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.

From Numbers 16. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Numbers 16:35

  • John Calvin (Reformed), Calvin's Commentaries on Numbers 16:35: 35. And there came out a fire from the Lord. The diver-sky of the punishments had the effect of awakening more astonishment in the people, than as if all had been destroyed in the same manner, although God’s anger raged more fiercely against the original authors of the evil, so as to make it manifest that each received a recompense according to the measure of his iniquity.
  • Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Numbers 16:35-40: We must now look back to the door of the tabernacle, where we left the pretenders to the priesthood with their censers in their hands ready to offer incense; and here we find, I. Vengeance taken on them, Num 16:35.
  • John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Numbers 16:35: And there came out a fire from the Lord,.... Flashes of lightning from the cloud in which he was: and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense; not that it reduced them to ashes, but took away their lives, struck them dead at once, in like manner as Nadab and Abihu were, who though said to be devoured by the fire, yet...
  • Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Numbers 16:35: there came out a fire from the Lord--that is, from the cloud. This seems to describe the destruction of Korah and those Levites who with him aspired to the functions of the priesthood. (See Num 26:11, Num 26:58; Ch1 6:22, Ch1 6:37).