A Natural and Unnatural Phenomenon — The death of Korah and his band, who are swallowed up by the earth, is generally understood as a punishment for the communal leaders who challenged the authority of Moses and Aaron.  A brief discussion in Tractate Nedarim of the Babylonian Talmud, however, suggests that their punishment was not merely the fact that they died, nor the gruesome path to that fate, but rather the type of death denied to them.