פרשת קרח תשי"ב - מחלוקת קרח ועונשו

And Moses was very wroth, and said unto the LORD: ‘Respect not thou their offering; I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them.’

לא חמור אחד מהם נשאתי means, I have not taken the ass of any one of them; — even when I went from Midian to Egypt and placed my wife and my sons on the ass (Exodus 4:20), and I surely ought afterwards to have taken the price of that ass from their money, yet I took it only from my own (Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 7). The translation given by Onkelos of the word נשאתי is שחרית: in the Aramaic language a forced levy made by the king is so called, viz., שחרור (cf. Rashi on Bava Batra 47a. The translation of Onkelos therefore is: I did not press into my service the ass of any one of them).

לא חמור אחד מהם נשאתי, I have not even appropriated a single donkey of theirs (the entire people) as a form of taxation as do most others rulers from all of their subjects. Seeing that this is so, on what do they base their claim that I behave like a ruler, a despot? If the vowel pattern under the word אחד would not have been “segol” followed by “kametz,” but two successive vowels “patach,” the meaning would be: “I have not taken away a single one of their privately owned asses.” It would have been a construct mode as in Genesis 26,10 אחד העם, i.e. “one of the common people.”

And they fell upon their faces, and said: ‘O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt Thou be wroth with all the congregation?’

And Moses said: ‘Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works, and that I have not done them of mine own mind.

To perform all of these deeds: i.e. transferring the duties of the firstborns unto the Leviim. And be aware that this is a serious matter. And it bothered them that they were no longer trusted to remove the firstborns from the Kohanim and give it all up to Moshe's family alone. All of this occurred during the sin of the Golden Calf for then they were seen as complete when they surpassed the firstborns who were worshiping since they were then the priests. And the Leviim killed the worshipers of the Calf. And there is here a question whose answer is in Parshas Vayeilech.

And Moses said: ‘Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works, and that I have not done them of mine own mind.