Numbers 16

Before Michael Bay became the ruling dictator of big, dumb, loud action films, those looking for their guilty-pleasure fix of massive explosions and mayhem looked to a fellow named Roland Emmerich. Emmerich really came into his own with the ridiculously cheesy yet entertaining Stargate and followed up with the even cheesier (and more massive) Independence Day. The latter film sowed the seeds of what would become an Emmerich obsession: films with scenes of cataclysmic, worldwide destruction. Emmerich's bubble burst with his surprisingly irksome Godzilla remake in 1998, but despite losing his vaunted crown to Bay, Emmerich continued his path of destruction with films such as The Day After Tomorrow and the already-dated 2012. (Bay had Armageddon, but--spoiler alert--not a whole lot of people actually die in that movie, unlike in the amusingly concurrent Deep Impact.)

When some miserable folks, led by a fellow named Korah, impertinently nag Moses about their duties being beneath them, God responds with an Emmerich-like disaster: "the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, and all associated with Korah, together with their possessions" (verse 32). The author's personification of the earth adds a primal feeling to this frightening event, as if the ground is furious at the little bugs crawling about on its surface. The earth isn't really angry, but God sure as heck is--and the author's transference of that emotion by way of personification makes for a nifty literary device.

And to deal with the pseudo-priests who didn't fall into the fissure, God sends a sheet of flame for good measure.

You'd think after witnessing this calamity, the Israelites would think twice about getting uppity with God. But no, the very next day, they grouse, "You have killed the LORD's people," (verse 41) which earns them yet another lovely tribulation: a plague that ends up killing 14,700 (verse 49). I wouldn't grumble against God if I witnessed Him opening up a chasm in the ground that swallows a bunch of screaming people, but am I impudent with God in subtler, more insidious, yet no less sinful ways? Don't I disdain God when I ignore Him and choose to act like a jerk?

What really gets me about this chapter, though, is that before the earth gobbles all those people up like Cookie Monster, the chapter says of two of the offenders, "Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing with their wives, children and little ones at the entrances to their tents" (verse 27). OK, so Dathan and Abiram were munched and sent "down alive into the realm of the dead" (verse 33)--fine, they deserved it. But the children and little ones too? In movies, the death of a child, or even a child in jeopardy, is one of the most shameless, manipulative actions one can film if it's mishandled. But when done well--let's just say that the only two pieces of filmed fiction to make me shed tears involved this. But this isn't a movie or work of fiction--this actually happened. I suppose I can rest easier knowing that, since it wasn't their fault, the children likely ascended to heaven. Living in a world with sin isn't fun. To quote the lyrics to the finale of Disney's stage version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame:

The world is cruel
The world is ugly
But there are times and there are people
When the world is not
And at its cruelest
It's still the only
World we've got

Source: http://enseeseven.tumblr.com/hunchbacklyrics (Website)