Or HaChaim on Numbers 16:15/אור החיים על במדבר ט״ז:ט״ו

1 ויאמר אל ה׳ אל תפן, He said to G'd: "do not turn to their gift-offering." Moses now understood the depth of Datan and Aviram's hatred, that they were thoroughly wicked and actually hated anything or anybody who was good. He was aware that there are no people who do not have certain merits due to good deeds they have performed. He realised that G'd does not withhold the reward for such merits from anyone, and that if the people in question cannot be rewarded in the hereafter because they had forfeited their hereafter, G'd would compensate them in this life. This is based on Deut. 32,4 that "the Lord is one of faithfulness without iniquity." Sanhedrin 106 provides us with an example of the wicked Bileam, who had after all pronounced all the blessings on the Jewish people, collecting his fee for having the Moabites seduce the Israelites, prior to his being slain. Moses did not want G'd to accept even the good deeds Korach and associates had performed for whom they had not yet received a reward. This is what he had in mind when he referred to מנחתם.

2You may well ask how Moses could expect G'd to change the rules of how He dealt with the wicked on account of himself?

3Be aware that the righteous possess the power to annul merits which the wicked have accumulated when they observe that the potential recipients have become thoroughly wicked. This is the mystical dimension of Samuel II 23,3 צדיק מושל יראת אלוקים, "The righteous rules in matters of G'd-fearingness." This means that G'd has given the righteous leeway to cancel merits that the wicked have acquired. The idea is that although G'd Himself does not do this, He has allowed the righteous to be His surrogates in this respect. This is not so surprising as the same principle which has been adopted by a court in our world which has the right to deprive an accused of property he owns under the heading of הפקר בית דין הפקר, that when a Jewish court declares certain property as ownerless such a declaration is binding (compare Gittin 36).

4You may still ask why Moses demanded such an exceptional punishment for Korach and his associates? Surely the mere fact that they hated Moses was not enough of a reason for Moses to act in this manner? Moreover, did we not learn in Moed Katan 18 that when someone is accused of something, if he is not guilty of the whole accusation he is at least guilty of part of it, and even if he is not guilty of having carried out part of the evil deed attributed to him he may have planned to do so? In view of this how could Moses demand such a penalty? This is the reason that Moses began to justify himself publicly saying that he had never taken anything from anybody, i.e. he had not displayed any sign that he lorded it over the people. He had not been guilty of any of the things that kings normally do without being faulted.

5He added ולא הרעותי את אחד מהם, "neither have I hurt anyone of them (in some other way)." Moses meant he had not been guilty of any act that would account for someone hating him for it.

6When Moses said the words את אחד מהם, this included that he was not even involved when one Jew hurt another Jew in some way. He had never given a verdict in which the guilty had been exonerated, nor had he issued a verdict in which the innocent had been declared guilty. If, as a result of his decision, one party had to pay money to a second party this was not Moses' doing but the guilty party had caused that loss to the other. Seeing that Moses possessed sufficient prophetic insight not to make awards to people who did not deserve them from people who were innocent of wrongdoing, he could say of himself that he had not wronged anybody during his career as leader of the nation. Inasmuch as Datan and Aviram's hatred of him could only be the result of bad character, Moses felt entitled to ask G'd to deprive these men of any merits they might have accumulated in their lives and for which they had not yet been recompensed. I believe that the wicked people concerning whom Moses offered this prayer, i.e. Datan and Aviram, were not considered by him as part of the congregation of Korach concerning whom we applied the verse from Samuel I that their share in the resurrection had already been assured (compare Sanhedrin 108). The souls of these men (Datan and Aviram) must have had their roots in the קליפה, the spiritually negative domain of Satan.