The Torah tells in Parashat Korach that Moshe summoned Datan and Aviram, two central figures in the rebellion led by Korach against Moshe's authority, to come before him. Datan and Aviram refused, proclaiming, "ha-einei ha-anashim ha-heim taneker, lo na'aleh" – "Will you gore those people's eyes? We shall not go up!" (16:14).
This difficult clause has been interpreted in a number of different ways by the commentators. Rashi explains it to mean, "Even if you gore the eyes of those people – we shall not go up," and claims that "those people" is a euphemistic reference to Datan and Aviram themselves. They emphasize their stubborn rejection of Moshe's summons by declaring that even if Moshe threatens to blind them for their refusal, they will not respond to his summons.
Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel translates this clause much differently, as a natural continuation of the first half of the verse, where Datan and Aviram exclaim, "You have not even brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey or given us a portion of fields and vineyards." In this clause, they add, "Will you blind the eyes of those men in that land and defeat them? We will not ascend to there!" According to this reading, "those people" refer to the inhabitants of Canaan. Datan and Aviram accuse Moshe and Aharon of violating the promise they had made in Egypt to lead Benei Yisrael into "a land flowing with milk and honey." And should Moshe insist that he will yet fulfill this promise, Datan and Aviram add, he is incapable of doing so; he would have to blind the eyes of all the people in Canaan in order to lead Benei Yisrael to a successful campaign against the Canaanites. Datan and Aviram thus deny the validity of Moshe and Aharon's leadership from the outset, as Benei Yisrael had accepted their authority on the basis of promises that they were never in a position to make in the first place.
Most commentaries, however, including Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Chizkuni, Abarbanel, Seforno and Malbim, explain much differently (though with minor nuances). In their view, Datan and Aviram refer here to what they perceive as a deliberate attempt by Moshe to deceive the people. They say to Moshe, "Are you going to blind those people?" They claim that Moshe and Aharon had deceived the people all along into thinking that they would bring them to a fertile land, solely for the purpose of asserting their authority over them. Thus, the reference to "blinding" or "goring" is a figurative description of the alleged conspiracy designed by Moshe and Aharon, rather that to actual blinding.