Numbers 19

²This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke:

Nu 19:1-22. The Water of Separation. 2. This is the ordinance of the law--an institution of a peculiar nature ordained by law for the purification of sin, and provided at the public expense because it was for the good of the whole community. Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, &c.--This is the only case in which the color of the victim is specified. It has been supposed the ordinance was designed in opposition to the superstitious notions of the Egyptians. That people never offered a vow but they sacrificed a red bull, the greatest care being taken by their priests in examining whether it possessed the requisite characteristics, and it was an annual offering to Typhon, their evil being.

By the choice, both of the sex and the color, provision was made for eradicating from the minds of the Israelites a favorite Egyptian superstition regarding two objects of their animal worship.

³And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face:

⁴And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times:

⁵And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:

⁶And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.

3-6. ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest that he may bring her forth without the camp--He was the second or deputy high priest, and he was selected for this duty because the execution of it entailed temporary defilement, from which the acting high priest was to be preserved with the greatest care. It was led “forth without the camp,” in accordance with the law regarding victims laden with the sins of the people, and thus typical of Christ (He 13:12; also Le 24:14). The priest was to sprinkle the blood “seven times” before--literally, “towards” or “near” the tabernacle, a description which seems to imply either that he carried a portion of the blood in a basin to the door of the tabernacle (Le 4:17), or that in the act of sprinkling he turned his face towards the sacred edifice, being disqualified through the defiling influence of this operation from approaching close to it.

By this attitude he indicated that he was presenting an expiatory sacrifice, for the acceptance of which he hoped, in the grace of God, by looking to the mercy seat. Every part of it was consumed by fire except the blood used in sprinkling, and the ingredients mixed with the ashes were the same as those employed in the sprinkling of lepers (Le 14:4-7). It was a water of separation--that is, of “sanctification” for the people of Israel.

⁷Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even.

7. the priest shall be unclean until the even--The ceremonies prescribed show the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, while they typify the condition of Christ when expiating our sins (2Co 5:21).

¹¹He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.

¹²He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

¹³Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him.

¹⁴This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.

¹⁵And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean.

¹⁶And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

¹⁷And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:

¹⁸And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:

¹⁹And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.

²⁰But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the LORD: the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

²¹And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them, that he that sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash his clothes; and he that toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean until even.

²²And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.

11-22. He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean--This law is noticed here to show the uses to which the water of separation [Nu 19:9] was applied. The case of a death is one; and as in every family which sustained a bereavement the members of the household became defiled, so in an immense population, where instances of mortality and other cases of uncleanness would be daily occurring, the water of separation must have been in constant requisition. To afford the necessary supply of the cleansing mixture, the Jewish writers say that a red heifer was sacrificed every year, and that the ashes, mingled with the sprinkling ingredients, were distributed through all the cities and towns of Israel.