Day 45. Numbers 18-20

Chapter of 17 of Numbers ends with the desperate cry of the Israelites—"We are perishing; we are lost; all of us are lost! Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the LORD will die. Are we all to perish?" (Numbers 17:12).
Are they really lost? The answer to the question is "no." The priesthood is an expression of God mercy. It is God's "yes." They will be allowed to approach the tabernacle to make atonement for the people—all others will indeed perish. "From now on," says the LORD, "the Israelites shall not longer approach the tent of meeting, or else they will incur guilt and die" (18:22).
The weight of responsibility for conducting the sacrifices and rituals that maintain the relationship between God and his people will fall entirely on the Levites. But in return for their service the clergy will receive everything that is not burned up the sacrifices, together with the first-fruits of the earth and the flock (18:13),
This generous settlement is necessary since the Levites will receive no allotment of the Promised Land. To them the LORD says—"I am your share and your possession among the Israelites" (18:20).
Now in Chapter 19 the ceremony of the red heifer is introduced. We are unsure exactly what a "red heifer" may have been—exactly how red it had to be. But Israel knew. And they were given instructions that the animal was to be slaughtered outside the camp and entirely burned up. Its ashes, mixed with water, were to be the purifying agent for those made unclean by contact with the dead. Death was the ultimate source of uncleanness in Israel, and yet it was—and is—almost impossible to avoid some contact with it. The "red heifer" ritual was intended to facilitate the return to the ritual community of those made unclean by contact with mortality.
At Kadesh Miriam dies, having reached, without doubt, a very advanced age (20:1). A prophet, a musician, a poet (see Exodus 15:20-21), and occasionally a thorn in the side to her brother Moses (see Numbers 12), Miriam was an important person in the story of early Israel, a fact as witnessed by the numberless girls named after her—Mary is a form of the name Miriam. Her death is a milestone in the passage of the first generation of Israelite leadership.
Again the people grumble, this time about the lack of potable water. In response God commands Moses to "take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your bother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water" (20:8).
But the aging Moses, in a fit of impatience and temper, "struck the rock twice with his staff" (20:11). Water indeed gushed out abundantly, but Moses had disobeyed the explicit command of the LORD, and for this he and Aaron are denied the right to lead Israel into the Promised Land (20:12). This will be task of others. Moses' leadership is affirmed, but now it is limited in time. The first generation is passing.
Remember the animosity between Jacob, the Son of Promise, and his twin Esau in the Book of Genesis. In chapter 20, verses 18-21 this ancient feud comes home to roost. Esau was the father of Edomites (see Genesis 36:1), and now the king of Edom refuses to allow the Israel to pass through his land, in spite of Moses' pleas based a common paternity (20:14). In the scriptures, the past is never completely past.
And as chapter 20 closes, another member of the first generation leadership leaves the stage. Aaron taken up Mount Hor and there he is ceremonially stripped of his vestments and a new high priest is consecrated in his place, his son Eleazar (20:28). Aaron dies on the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar come down without him. Continuity is more important than sentimentality. The story continues—that is the most important thing.