Numbers 18-19; Psalm 36

Numbers 18
1-7 - Responsibility of Priests and Levites

God to Aaron: Your ancestral house (the Levites):

• Will bear responsibility for offenses connected with the sanctuary
• Shall perform duties for you and the whole tent
• Must NOT approach the utensils or the altar, or you will all die
• Are now yours as a gift, dedicated to the LORD

You and your sons:

• Will bear responsibility for offenses connected with the priesthood
• Will perform the duties of the sanctuary and the duties of the altar -- "so that wrath may never again come upon the Israelites"
• Are given the priesthood as a gift; any outsider who approaches shall be put to death

This seems to be the point behind the incident with Korah: The LORD will choose his own priesthood. Anyone who usurps his decision in this will be punished. As he repeats over and over again, with an emphasis on the "I" - "I am the LORD your God" - Do not heed or follow anyone or anything else. These harsh lessons experienced by the Israelites are recorded for our example -- we serve the same God, who insists on a singular loyalty. We must not define him in terms that make us comfortable, nor change his personality to suit ours.

8-32 - The Priest's Portion

God to Aaron:

• The holy gifts of the Israelites are yours, due you in perpetuity
• Everyone who is clean in your house may eat them
• But the family of Levi shall have no allotment in the land - "I am your share and your possession among the Levites"
• The tithes are yours

God to Moses to the Levites:

• If I understand this right: The Levites are to give Aaron a tithe of the tithe they receive as well as the best of what they receive
  
• The rest is for them and their households

Numbers 19 - Laws of Purification
1-10 - Ceremony of the Red Heifer (A Purification Offering)
God to Moses and Aaron:

• Red heifer, unblemished and never yoked, to be killed outside the camp
• Eleazar to sprinkle the blood 7 times toward the tabernacle; burn the heifer; add cedar, hyssop, and crimson material to the fire; wash his clothes and bathe; come back into the camp, although he is unclean for the rest of the day
• One who is clean disposes of the ashes - outside the camp and also becomes unclean for the rest of the day

11-20 - Touching a Corpse

• Causes uncleanness -- must go through proper procedures to be clean. If they don't, they defile the tabernacle and will be cut off from Israel
• If someone dies in a tent -- every person and every open vessel in the tent is unclean for 7 days, and must undergo cleansing process
• Whoever touches an unclean person will be unclean
  

Regarding the hyssop that is used in cleansing the tent, I found this information: "The perennial hyssop is a sweet and warming aromatic with a camphor-like scent....The Hebrew people called this herb azob, meaning 'holy herb.' Hyssop was used in ancient times as a cleansing herb for temples and other sacred places. It was also used to repel insects. The Romans used hyssop to bring protection from the plague and prepared an herbal wine containing hyssop. In ancient Greece, the physicians Galen and Hippocrates valued hyssop for inflammations of the throat and chest, pleurisy, and other bronchial complaints. In the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hyssop tea and tincture were used to treat jaundice and dropsy." www.healthline.com

Psalm 36 - Contrasting Human Wickedness with Divine Goodness
1 - "Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in their hearts; there is no fear of God before their eyes."
6 - "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O LORD."