“A year after, Rabbi Chija passed that way, and he saw the bunches like goats. So he said, ‘The goats are in the vineyard.’ But the inhabitants said, ‘They are grape-bunches; depart from us and do not unto us as did your fellow last year.’”[554] 11. OF KORAH AND HIS COMPANY. (Numb. xvi.) And the Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the sons of Israel, and bid them make fringes not of threads, nor of yarn, nor of fibre, but after a peculiar fashion shall they make them. They shall cut off the heads of the filaments, and suspend by five ligatures, four in the midst of three, upon the four corners of their garments, and they shall put upon the edge of their garments a border of blue (or embroidery of hyacinth).”[555] But Korah, son of Ezhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, refused to wear the blue border. Moses had said, “The fringes are to be of white, with one line of blue;” but Korah said, “I will make mine altogether of blue;” and the two hundred and fifty men of the sons of Israel, who had been leaders of the congregation at the time when the journeys and encampments were appointed, supported Korah.[556] Korah was a goldsmith, and Moses greatly honoured him, for he was his cousin, and the handsomest man of all Israel. When Moses returned from the Mount, he bade Korah destroy the calf; but the fire would not consume it. Then Moses prayed, and God showed him the philosopher’s stone, which is a plant that grows in great abundance by the shores of the Red Sea, but none knew of its virtues before. Now, this plant turns metals into gold, and also if a twig of it be cast into gold, it dissolves it away. Moses instructed Korah in the virtues of this herb. Then Korah dissolved the calf by means of it, but he also used it to convert base metals into gold, and thus he became very rich. Korah had great quantities of this herb, and he made vast stores of gold. He accumulated treasures. What he desired he bought, and he surrounded himself with servants clad in cloth of gold. He built brick houses with brass doors, and filled them to the roof with gold, and he made his servants walk before him with the keys of his treasure-houses hung round their necks. He had twenty men carrying these keys; and still he increased in wealth, so he placed the keys on camels; and when he still built more treasuries and turned more substance into gold, he increased the number of keys to such an extent that he had sixty camel loads of them. Moses knew whence Korah derived his wealth, but the rest of the congregation of Israel knew not. After that, Korah did that which was wrong, and he broke the commandment of Moses, and would have no blue border on his servants’ tunics, but habited them in scarlet, and mounted them on red horses. Neither did he confine himself to the meats which Moses permitted as clean.