According to Numbers 16–17, a Levite named Korah led many in challenging Aaron's exclusive claim to the priesthood. When the rebels were punished by being swallowed up by the earth (Numbers 16:25-35), Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was commissioned to take charge of the censers of the dead priests. And when a plague broke out among the people who had sympathized with the rebels, Aaron, at the command of Moses, took his censer and stood between the living and the dead till the plague abated (Numbers 17:1-15, 16:36-50).