The text of Nm 16-17 relates the revolt of different groups against the authority of Moses and Aaron. Its composition is complex, and at least three hands contributed to its elaboration. The interpolations and glosses, according to critics, signal frustrated attempts at harmonization, with the aim of uniting the story of the revolt of Dathan and Abiram with the story of the revolt of Core and the two hundred and fifty leaders. Faced with news studies, more interested in style, research has treated the text in its final form as a plot constructed and articulated around conflict of authority. The dramatic construction of Nm 16-17 contains a clear beginning with the presentation of personalities, the presence of conflicts (Nm 16,1-3), development (Nm 16,5-11), dramatization (Nm 16,12-15) and a high point of conflict (Nm 16,19). This dramatization (Nm 16,19b-24; 25- 30) and the ending, with the liquidation of the rebels (Nm 16,31-35), characterize the text as a literary unit with stylistic elements and peculiar narratives. The plot ends with the wiping out of the guilty. However this does not yet mean the end of the conflicts. They reappear in the second story of revolt which involved the people as a whole (Nm 17, 6 -15).The intention of the final author is to defend the Jewish identity of the people, by means of the priestly class, which had assumed leadership after the Exile. This story, emphasising the liquidation of those who rebelled against authority, was therefore written from the viewpoint of those who were in power, exactly because its conclusion (Nm 17,16- 28) aims to show the divine confirmation of the Elected One, Aaron, as High Priest. Emphasising the defeat of the rebels, the author also wishes to present an archetypical story of rebellion, with the aim of confronting or threatening all those who would dare rebel against the authorities constituted as such by God himself.