Numbers 16:30

But if Adonoy will create a new creation.

To kill them with a death no one has ever experienced until now. What is this creation? “The earth will open its mouth and swallow them.” Then, you will know that they angered God, and I spoke according to the word of the Almighty. The Rabbis interpret, ‘if the mouth of the earth was created during the six days of creation, fine, but if not, let God it create [now]!’

But if a death which hath not been created since the days of the world be now created for them, and if a mouth for the earth, which hath not been made from the beginning, be created now, and the earth open her mouth and swallow them and all they have, and they go down alive into Sheol, you will understand that these men have provoked the Lord to anger.

BUT IF THE ETERNAL CREATE ‘B’RIAH.’ Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote: “Some scholars say that b’riah indicates producing something from nothing. But, [continues Ibn Ezra], many countries have already been rent [by earthquakes], and their inhabitants went down alive into the pit. Rather, the meaning of b’riah is ‘cutting off,’ from [the expression] ‘u’varei’ (and they shall cut) them” [thus meaning here: “if the Eternal will ‘cut them’ down by causing the ground to open up its mouth etc.”].
The correct interpretation is that the term b’riah is [indeed] used [in the sense of] bringing forth something from nothing, for we have no other word in the Sacred Language denoting this concept [creatio ex nihilo] except for this one. The explanation of the matter is that splitting open the [crust of the] earth is [indeed] not a new creation, but that the ground should open up its mouth to swallow up [certain people] is a new event which had never occurred previously. For when the earth is split open, as happens many times during an earthquake which is called zalzalah, it remains open and the chasm becomes filled with water, like ponds; but that it should open up and close again immediately — like a person who opens his mouth to swallow and closes it after he has swallowed — this event was a new happening which occurred [only] on that day, as if it were created out of nothing. This is the meaning of the expression, and the earth closed upon them [that it closed up immediately after consuming them, and left no sign that it had opened]. It is for this reason that [when saying that] the ground did cleave asunder, Scripture says: And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up. And according to the opinion of our Rabbis [who say] that the opening of Gehenna came near to this spot — that phenomenon too, was a new event which occurred [only] at that moment.

(אם בריאה (חדשה) ה' בארץ), a reference to another example of a ”creative” act by G’d, as for instance the one described in Jeremiah 31,21. Moses speaks of the death of Korach, as opposed to that of Nadav and Avihu, being by means of a new act of creation.

וידעתם כי נאצו, for they do not deserve to even be buried together with the remainder of the people.