Why Dathan and Abiram Stood Defiant Against Moses

"And Moses rose up and went, etc." (Numbers 16:25). Moses was seeking to make them afraid and to terrify them, and to speak to Israel the words of the Omnipresent, so that they would return in repentance. But they did not do so; rather, they added still further to sin, as it is said: "And Dathan and Abiram came out, standing" (verse 27) — reviling, just as it is said concerning Goliath, "And he presented himself forty days" (1 Samuel 17:16). They and their wives and their little ones, all of them reviled Moses.