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Psalm 106:18

A fire was kindled in their company. The flame burned up the wicked.

16They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron, the LORD’s saint.
17The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram.
18A fire was kindled in their company. The flame burned up the wicked.
19They made a calf in Horeb, and worshiped a molten image.
20Thus they exchanged their glory for an image of a bull that eats grass.
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← Psalm 106:17Psalm 106:19 →
Notice

Fire burns within Israel’s own company, making this account of judgment unsettling for anyone who expects belonging to God’s people to make wickedness safe.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What troubles you about the flame consuming people within Israel’s own company?

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How does the envy toward Moses and Aaron shape your reading of this judgment?

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Connect

Where else Scripture says this

7 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
2 Kings 1:10Elijah answered to the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty!” Then fire came down from …Fire consumes a group of people in both accounts, with Elijah’s account naming the captain and his fifty.
Numbers 16:35Fire came out from the LORD, and devoured the two hundred fifty men who offered the incense.Numbers identifies the fire’s source as the LORD and those consumed as the incense bearers; the psalm recounts their destruction.
Revelation 20:9They went up over the width of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. Fire came down out of heaven from God and devoured them.Both describe people consumed by fire in judgment, with Revelation naming those who surround the saints’ camp.
Numbers 11:1The people were complaining in the ears of the LORD. When the LORD heard it, his anger burned; and the LORD’s fire burned among them, and consumed some of the …Both accounts describe destructive fire within Israel’s camp, though Numbers connects this outbreak with the people’s complaints.
Hebrews 12:29for our God is a consuming fire.The psalm recounts fire consuming the wicked; Hebrews describes God himself as a consuming fire.
Numbers 16:46Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, put fire from the altar in it, lay incense on it, carry it quickly to the congregation, and make atonement for them; …Both passages describe judgment within the congregation, though Numbers describes a plague and fire used in making atonement.
Judges 8:34The children of Israel didn’t remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side;The link is broad: Israel’s wrongdoing appears in both, as forgotten deliverance in Judges and wickedness judged in the psalm.
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Read Numbers 16:35 alongside this verse; note who sends fire

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Encouragement

This is a hard account to read. You do not have to soften its violence: the fire kills, and God’s judgment reaches within his own people.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 106:18. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 106 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).