Commentaire sur Les Nombres 16:28

לעשות את כל המעשים האלה [HEREBY YE SHALL KNOW THAT THE LORD HATH SENT ME] TO DO ALL THESE THINGS — i.e. that I have acted by the Divine Command in giving Aaron the High Priesthood, and in making his sons second in rank in the priesthood and Elzaphan prince of the Kohathites.

בזאת תדעון, "Hereby you shall know, etc." Why did Moses think that after all that had occurred during the preceding two years that the Israelites still did not believe that he was a true prophet? Furthermore, why did he have to repeat כי לא מלבי, "that I did not do all these things arbitraily?" The people did not actually accuse Moses of having acted on his own when he appointed Aaron as High Priest, etc. However, they thought that Moses had exploited his good standing in the eyes of G'd to persuade G'd to agree with his personal choices for these positions. Alternatively, the people had thought that Moses had desired for these particular appointments to be made and G'd had read his mind and indulged him by telling him to make these appointments. The people had not disagreed that Aaron was unworthy to be the High Priest. Moses therefore countered that what was about to occur would be proof that he had not even initiated any of these decisions but that all of them had originated with G'd. As to the people's suspicion that in his heart Moses had wished for these people to be appointed to the positions they had been appointed to at the command of G'd, he said כי לא מלבי, "the thought had never occurred to me." The word כי here indicates that Moses felt he did not need to prove that he had acted on his own. All he had to prove was that he had not even entertained any thought of appointing close relatives to high positions such as the position of being High Priest.

כי לא מלבי, the idea to assign the offering of incense to them did not originate with me,

בזאת תדעון כי ה' שלחני לעשות את כל המעשים האלה, “By this you shall know that it was the Lord who sent me to do all these things.” He referred to the exchanging of the functions formerly performed by the firstborn to be performed by the Levites. The firstborn had disqualified themselves from acting as priests as they had participated in the sin of the golden calf as described in Exodus 32,6: “they offered burnt-offerings and meat-offerings (in honour of the golden calf),” as opposed to the Levites who had remained loyal to G’d and had acted as executioners of the people publicly worshipping the golden calf (Exodus 30,28). The Levites were sanctified in place of the firstborn and chosen to perform sacrificial services. Anyone who did not believe in the selection of the Levites to replace the firstborn indicated thereby that the guilt of the golden calf episode had not yet been expunged and that the people who now challenged Moses and Aaron did not consider these parts of the written Torah as authentic.

Conferring the Kehunah Gedolah on Aharon and [appointing] his sons as assistants. For if not so, why would he have said “all of these deeds”? Surely they were only disputing with Aharon. What is meant by “all of these deeds”? Therefore, although these matters were not mentioned previously, since they were well known, it is as if they had been mentioned [previously]. For if not [that they were included], the doubt over the assistantship and the leadership would have remained. The reason that the monarchy was not mentioned is that it was not being disputed.

V. 28. את כל המעשים האלה bezieht sich wohl auf seine ganze bisherige Wirksamkeit, nicht bloß speziell auf Aharons Erhebung zum Priestertum und das über das ältere Geschlecht verhängte Aussterben in der Wüste.

לעשות את כל המעשים האלה, “to perform all these works.” I have tested them by the manner in which they related to the incense, as I have said, when I gave you a chance to compete against Aaron, each of you with his own censer. An alternate interpretation: to show if the priests could be exchanged for the Levites. (Ibn Ezra)

אם כמות כל האדם, "If, in a manner similar to the death of anyone else, etc." In this instance the term האדם is one that includes Gentiles. We have a parallel for this in Baba Kama 38 where the Talmud explained that the word האדם in Leviticus 18,3 includes Gentiles. So far Moses referred to the actual death. The words ופקדת כל האדם refer to their burial. We have an example of that meaning of the word פקדה in Kings II 9,34 where the burial of Queen Izzevel is described. The words לא ה׳ שלחני mean that if Moses' prediction will fail to materialise this would be proof that G'd had not appointed him but that he himself had originated all he had done though G'd had not hindered him. The words ואם בריאה introduce what is going to happen, i.e. that body and soul will perish simultaneously.