Weird Stuff in the Bible

That Time God Opened Up the Ground and Dropped a Bunch of People Straight into Hell
Jude 11, Numbers 16
Or: Is Hell Actually Inside the Earth? (Numbers 16)
Introduction
We are pressing forward in the book of Jude today. As I’ve said before, Jude is kind of like the Bible’s junk drawer. Everyone has a junk drawer at their house; it’s full of random objects that you just aren’t sure where else to put them, so you throw them all into one drawer and you call it your junk drawer.
That’s how Jude is. It’s like a collection of things that you just aren’t so sure what to do with. Just about every verse of Jude contains a callback to a Bible story. Almost always a weird Bible story. And we just spent three weeks talking about Balaam because he comes up in Jude 11. Let’s read it again:
Jude 11
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
As a reminder, or if you’re with us for the first time, the book of Jude is a book about apostates. Apostates are those who fall away from Christianity, and right here, Jude introduces the fate of apostates: they rely on their works like Cain, they are materialistic like Balaam, and then they will suffer the same fate of those in Korah’s rebellion.
So what happened to the people in Korah’s Rebellion?
Numbers 16:32-33 say
32 And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. 33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol [aka: hell], and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
Wow, there is a story in the Bible where the ground opened up under some people’s feet and literally dropped them straight into hell itself?
Why would God do this?
And this literally happened. Does this mean hell is literally inside the earth?
I find all this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Numbers 16, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

The Legend of Korah
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about the legend of Korah. And it’s actually not a legend: it’s real. It really happened. If you believe the Bible, you believe this really happened.
But it’s a little weird, so let’s break it down. Let’s start with WHY it happened. In Numbers 16, a man named Korah stirs up a mini-rebellion against his leader, Moses. This is during that period when the Israelites are in the wilderness for 40 years.
Numbers 16:1-2
Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; 2 and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown.
If you trace Korah’s lineage, to Exodus 6, he’s a relative of Moses and probably would have been considered in the line of succession to Moses if something had happened to Moses and Aaron. But Korah decides to leapfrog some of that and become the leader of Israel by overthrowing Moses and Aaron in a rebellion.
Numbers 16:3
They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”
Let’s examine his complaint:
“You take too much upon yourselves” = you might read that and think Moses and Aaron are getting rich off the little people or something. No, Korah doesn’t like that Moses has so much control. It’s a jealousy of his power.
So Korah wants to say Moses doesn’t have a right to set himself up above all the people
“for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them” = because Moses was the representative of God for the people and they had personal conversation. Korah is saying, “We don’t need you as a spiritual leader, Moses, because we can all talk to God if we want to.”
You know what: some people feel that way about pastors; that they don’t need a spiritual leader, they can pray and be holy on their own. But God says to put yourself under a pastor. And even pastors are put under pastors in our denomination.
“Why then do you exalt yourselves” = a misunderstanding about leadership; it’s not exaltation of yourself. It’s not supposed to be, anyway. But when someone is prideful, like Korah, they are are always irritated by what they perceive as pride in others.
Bible teacher Jon Courson said: “The spirit of rebellion has its roots in pride, not principle.”
CS Lewis said: “…the more we have [pride] ourselves, the more we dislike it in others”
Numbers 16:4-5
4 So when Moses heard it, he fell on his face;
This is how I know Moses probably wasn’t the problem. The person with more humility is usually the one who is not having the problem in a conflict. Korah is seeking to exalt himself. That’s pride. Moses’ first response to being challenged is NOT to say, “Hey man, God came to ME in a burning bush, not you.” No, Moses immediately fell on his face. Verse 2 said Korah “rose up.” Verse 4 said Moses fell on his face.
Just based on body language, we can observe that Moses was probably not the problem.
5 and he spoke to Korah and all his company, saying, “Tomorrow morning the Lord will show who is His and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to Him. That one whom He chooses He will cause to come near to Him.
So the next day, the people gather again and they lay out their accusations against Moses. The accusations are pretty thin. They try to blame him for the 40 years of wandering around in the desert, saying this guy doesn’t know where he’s going. But the 40 years were there own fault because they were afraid to confront the Nephilim, as we studied several episodes back in the episode Nephilim After the Flood. So Moses says He will let them have their say and leave the matter in God’s hands.
That’s another thing a truly humble person can do. They don’t have to be proven right. A humble person knows that someday, there’s a judgment seat of Christ, that God will have the final say. And Moses is humble enough that he’s willing to leave it all in God’s hands.
How do I know that Moses was humble; because he said so. In
Numbers 12:3, Moses wrote,
(Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.)
So see, Moses was the most humble person on the planet. I know because he told us.
That line could probably be a Weird Stuff in the Bible episode down the road. It’s a pretty funny line.
Numbers 16:19-21
19 And Korah gathered all the congregation against them at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation.
20 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 21 “Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.”
God is telling Moses and Aaron: when I make my decision, you both don’t want to be standing where Korah’s people are standing.
Moses tells the people: if you’re with Korah, go stand with Korah. If you’re with me, get as far from Korah as you can.
Numbers 16:31-33
31 Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. 33 So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly.
God just opens up the ground underneath them and it said they were swallowed up by the earth. That is quite a visual to imagine. It makes you wonder how instant it was. If the ground split apart like an earthquake, or if a bunch of it gave way all at once like some kind of sinkhole. It must have been terrifying to see, even if you didn’t die in it. God made it pretty clear how He felt about Korah’s rebellion.
They fell straight into “the pit.” A translation I read from earlier said they fell into “Sheol.” It’s the same word often translated in the Old Testament as “hell.”
It said Korah and the rebels went down to hell alive. Now, what did that mean?

Where is hell?
Cover your kids ears because this conversation is about to get serious.
Now, I want to be clear about something: hell is eternal conscious torment. If Korah and his followers literally dropped into hell, their body may be incinerated by the flames, but their soul or spirit will be tormented there in the fires of hell for all eternity. We’ll talk more about the eternal nature of hell in next week’s episode.
But is hell actually a physical place within the earth? Well, let’s cover a few facts. Biblically speaking, when someone goes into hell, it’s always spoken of as going “down” into hell. Heaven is always up, hell is always down. Also, there are verses that seem to place hell within the physical earth. Jesus said:
In Matthew 12:40
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
This referred to when Jesus went to the underworld, or Sheol, to set free the imprisoned spirits of the saints and allow them to go on up into heaven. I’m sure we’ll cover that on a future episode of this podcast because it’s one of those oddities in the Bible that’s there, but most Christians don’t really know about it.
If you were to study the geological outline of the earth, you would see that there’s an outer layer called the earth’s crust, and then after that comes a thick region called the mantle that has the plates that shift around and cause earthquakes; and then after that is the outer core, which is very hot and creates the magnetic field of the earth; and then the inner core, which is like molten hot lava. Extreme heat. 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
So if hell was a physical place within the earth, then I could certainly understand right where it’d be. And yet, let’s ask ourselves a question: is heaven truly up in the sky? If you fly in a spaceship high enough, can you get there?
A Russian cosmonaut who went to space is famous for saying, “We went to space and we didn’t see God. He must not be real.” I’d tell you his name but I don’t know how to pronounce it.
Now, modern people wouldn’t expect to find God if we went far enough in space. We understand that heaven, if it corresponds to anything, isn’t necessarily up in the air physically, but must exist in another plane or dimension, to use science fiction lingo. We understand this about heaven. God says that heaven is up in the sky for one of two reasons: either one, because God is using human ideas to communicate what it’s like in a spiritual place. If you’re up in the sky, you can look down upon earth and see everything going on. So perhaps God is not literally sitting on a cloud up in the sky, but God uses this terminology because it helps us understand the vantage point God has. So that’s one reason. Two, maybe heaven exists in some kind of alternate dimension, but you do get there by going up. After all, Jesus ascended into heaven after He resurrected. Perhaps that was the quickest way to get there.
Now, let’s reverse this idea. Hell is always spoken of as down. If you dug a deep enough hole, could you get all the way to hell? No, I don’t think so. I mean, you probably would die, and if you weren’t saved, you’d probably find yourself pretty quickly in hell. But it’s not a physical location within the earth’s core. But I’d say that it’s described that way for similar reasons to why heaven is described as up. One, because God is using human ideas to communicate what it would be like to go there. But two, perhaps hell exists in this alternate spiritual dimension, but the way you get there is by going down. Perhaps the spiritual realm matches the physical realm in the sense that while we are going about our daily lives here on the earth, there is a spiritual realm going on all around us full of angels, demons and other spiritual beings. I think it corresponds to the physical world that we have around us at all times, it just operates in another plane of existence.
Look at this story in II Kings 6 when Elisha and his servant were surrounded by an army, and the servant pokes his head out of his tent and sees this army surrounding them, and it says
(II Kings 6:15-17)
When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” 16 He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
So even though a physical army of horses and chariots had surrounded the city, Elisha wasn’t worried because he knew that there was a spiritual realm, and in this realm, there was an even greater army of horses of fire and chariots of fire, and that the spiritual reality would supersede the physical reality.
So in this spiritual unseen realm that operates around us at all times, I believe this is where heaven and hell sit, and that in this realm, heaven is up above us and hell is down below us. So as Jesus ascended into heaven, his resurrection body was able to transport itself right into heaven without skipping a beat; and when Korah and his followers dropped down into hell, at some point, their earthly bodies were destroyed, but their spiritual bodies found themselves in the same place, down below, in the heart of the earth.
Now, Jude is trying to use this story as an example to teach us an important fact, and we’ll cover that before we close down today.
[musical interlude]

The Legend of Koresh
Next time on this podcast, we’ll continue along through Jude by covering verses 12 and 13. The weirdest thing in these verses is the phrase “twice dead,” so I want to explain that one next time.
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What weird stuff in the Bible do you want to know more about? weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
I want to share a story in closing, a true story that happened when I was just a baby. I know some details about this story are controversial. I’m not trying to take a side on any of that, I’m just sharing this to illustrate a biblical truth.
Blurry Creatures seems to have some overlap…
In closing today, we have spent some time dissecting the story of Korah. I don’t want to get so far into the trees that we forget to look at the forest: Jude 11 is trying to teach us something about apostates.
(Jude 11)
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
This gives us a profile of apostates. Cain’s way was to trust in his works. Balaam’s error was materialism- the idolatry of material things like money. And then Korah’s rebellion was because of pride. Works, materialism and pride. These are three landmines that will blow up a person’s faith.
It also shows the process of apostasy. Cain is the beginning of apostasy: messing with the gospel. Works over faith. Not trusting in the lamb.
Balaam is the activity of apostasy. Licentiousness. Following our passions and letting them take the reigns of our life instead of God.
And Korah shows the fate of apostasy: destruction. Eternity in hell. And he took the quickest route to get there.
Is hell in another dimension, or is it under our feet? The answer is yes. It’s in another dimension right under our feet.
And if that sounds weird, just remember: The Bible is not weird. WE are weird, because we don’t know about the location of hell. But now we do. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time.