Gifts to the Kohanim After Korach's Rebellion

After the story of קרח’s rebellion, the תורה tells us about the various gifts that בני ישראל must give to the כהנים.

רש"י gives the example of a king who gave a field to his friend. Another person came and challenged the ownership of the field, so the king wrote and signed a document in court, to affirm ownership of the field, and ensure that no one would challenge it again.

Here, too, since קרח made a claim against אהרן regarding the כהונה, the תורה comes and gives him 24 מתנות כהונה, gifts, to confirm his כהונה.

QUESTION:

Why does רש"י specify the amount of gifts that are given to the כהנים?

ANSWER:

קרח convinced people from all the 12 שבטים to join him in his rebellion.

However, like a גנב (as opposed to a גזלן) who hides what he is doing, they were sneaky, and hid their intent to rebel by saying things like כ ל ה ע ד ה כוּל ם ק דוֹש ים, everyone is equally holy.

This is why רש"י specifies that there were 24 gifts for the כהנים.

Just as a גנב must pay double of what he stole, בני ישראל now had to give a total of 24 gifts to the כהנים, to correct what they had done.

The 24 מתנות כהונה represent 2 gifts – “double payment” – on behalf of each of the 12 שבטים.

Further discussion:

Since many people from שבט לוי also joined the rebellion, why were there not a total of 26 מתנות כהונה?
(See אות י"א in the שיחה)