against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all
the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them:
wherefore then lift you up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?"

Koran's grievance was that he had been, although a Levite, excluded from
the priesthood in favor of the demands of Aaron and his sons.

"And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face."

And yet something had to be done. Moses faced an extreme danger. His life
hung upon the issue. As between him and Korah he had to demonstrate which
was the better sorcerer or magician, and he could only do this by
challenging Korah to the test of the ordeal: the familiar test of the
second clause of the code of Hammurabi; "If the holy river makes that man
to be innocent, and has saved him, he who laid the spell upon him shall be
put to death. He who plunged into the holy river shall take to himself the
house of him who wove the spell upon him." [Footnote: Code of Laws
promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon. Translated by C. H. W. Johns,
M.A., Section 2.] And so with Elijah, to whom Ahaziah sent a captain of
fifty to arrest him. And Elijah said to the captain of fifty, "If I be a
man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy
fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his
fifty." [Footnote: 2 Kings I, 10.]

In a word, the ordeal was the common form of test by which the enchanter,
the sorcerer, or the magician always was expected to prove himself. Moses
already had tried the test by fire at least once, and probably oftener. So
now Moses reproached Korah because he was jealous of Aaron; "and what is
Aaron, that ye murmur against him?... This do; Take you censers, Korah,
and all his company; and put fire therein, and put incense in them before