John Calvin Commentary Numbers 27:3

"Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not among the company of them that gathered themselves together against Jehovah in the company of Korah: but he died in his own sin; and he had no sons." — Numbers 27:3 (ASV)

Our father died in the wilderness. The plea they allege is not a contemptible one, that is, that their father died after God had called His people to the immediate possession of the promised land. For if the question had been carried back to an earlier period, it might have caused many quarrels. This restriction with respect to time, therefore, aided their cause.

In the second place, they plead that their father had committed no crime by which he might have been excluded from the general allotment of the land. For in the conspiracy of Dathan and Abiram, they include by synecdoche, in my opinion, the other sins whose punishment affected the posterity of the criminals. His private sin is, therefore, contrasted with public disgrace, for that is how I interpret what they say of his having “died in his own sin.”

And surely, it is mere childish nonsense that the Jews¹⁹⁹ affirm: that he was the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day, or one of the number of those who were killed by the bite of the serpents. It is also unnatural to refer it to the curse under which the whole human race lies.

They distinguish, then, his private sin from any public crime that would have caused him to deserve to be disinherited, so that their father's condition would not be worse than that of any other person. At the same time, they hold fast to the principle dictated to us by common religious understanding: that death, as being the curse of God, is the wages of sin.

¹⁹⁹ S.M. refers to this Rabbinical gloss. R. Sal. Jarchi tells us: “R. Akiba says, that he collected the wood; but R. Simeon says that he was one of those who were contumacious.” — Edit. Breihthaupt, refers to this Rabbinical gloss. R. Sal. Jarchi tells us: “R. Akiba says, that he collected the wood; but R. Simeon says that he was one of those who were contumacious.” — Edit. Breihthaupt, in loco, p. 1243, and notes.p. 1243, and notes.