Numbers 19

Numbers 19 is a legal section set among the wilderness narratives in the middle portion of Numbers. Following Numbers 18, which defines the duties of the priests and the Levites after the rebellion of Korah, it prescribes the means of removing the uncleanness caused by contact with a dead body. Uncleanness here refers to a state of ritual defilement.

Outline

• Verses 1–10: The LORD gives a command to Moses and Aaron. A red heifer without blemish, upon which no yoke has come, is to be given to Eleazar and slain outside the camp. Eleazar sprinkles its blood seven times toward the tabernacle of the congregation. The heifer is then burned whole, and cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet are cast into the fire. A man who is clean gathers up the ashes and lays them up outside the camp in a clean place, to be used in making the water of separation. The priest, the one who burns the heifer, and the one who gathers the ashes must wash their clothes and are unclean until evening.
• Verses 11–13: Whoever touches a dead body is unclean seven days. If he does not purify himself with this water of ashes on the third day and on the seventh day, he defiles the tabernacle and is cut off from Israel.
• Verses 14–16: When a person dies in a tent, everyone in the tent, everyone who enters it, and every open vessel without a covering becomes unclean. Anyone who touches one who has died in the open field, a bone, or a grave is likewise unclean seven days.
• Verses 17–22: The ashes are mixed with running water, and a clean person dips hyssop in it and sprinkles it on the third day and on the seventh day. Whoever does not purify himself is cut off from the congregation. The one who sprinkles the water of separation and the one who touches it are also unclean until evening.

Key Verses

• Numbers 19:2 "a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke": the starting point of the rite commonly called the "ordinance of the red heifer."
• Numbers 19:9 "for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin": links the purification rite with the sin offering.
• Numbers 19:13: treats neglect of the purification procedure as defiling the tabernacle.

People and Places

• Moses, Aaron: receive this ordinance.
• Eleazar: the son of Aaron, who presides over the rite as priest. In Numbers 20 he succeeds Aaron.
• Outside the camp: the area beyond the Israelite encampment, where the heifer is slain and its ashes are kept.
• Tabernacle of the congregation: another name for the tabernacle.

Points for Reflection

• The ashes that cleanse the unclean make unclean the clean persons who handle them (vv. 7–10, 21). Interpreters have long noted this feature. Jewish tradition is reported to have regarded this ordinance as a prime example of a statute whose reason is not disclosed.
• The text does not explain why Eleazar, rather than Aaron, is given charge of the rite.
• Cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet also appear together in the purification rite for leprosy in Leviticus 14.
• In the New Testament, Hebrews 9:13–14 draws on this ordinance, arguing that if the ashes of a heifer sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ purge the conscience. Many Christian interpreters read the slaying of the heifer outside the camp as a type of Christ, connecting it with Jesus, who suffered without the gate (Hebrews 13:12). Other interpreters, however, urge caution about assigning symbolic meaning to every detail.
• Some Jewish groups in modern Israel are reported to have sought to raise red heifers with a view to rebuilding the temple. Some Christians who hold to dispensationalist eschatology have taken an interest in this in connection with the end times. This is a later concern rather than something the text itself addresses.