Red Heifer

Biblical Text and Content

The ordinance of the red heifer appears in Numbers 19. God commands Moses and Aaron to have the Israelites bring a red heifer without spot or blemish, upon which a yoke has never come (Numbers 19:2). The heifer is handed over to Eleazar the priest and slaughtered outside the camp. Eleazar dips his finger in its blood and sprinkles it seven times toward the front of the tabernacle of the congregation. The heifer is then burned whole—its skin, flesh, blood, and dung—and the priest casts cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet thread into the fire. A man who is clean gathers up the ashes and lays them in a clean place outside the camp; when needed, they are put into a vessel, running water is added, and the mixture is used as "a water of separation."

This water was used for a person who had become unclean through contact with a dead body. Whoever touched a corpse was unclean for seven days and became clean only after being sprinkled with this water on the third and seventh days. A tent in which a person had died, along with any open vessel inside it, also became unclean. In such cases a clean person dipped hyssop (a small plant) in the water and sprinkled it. A person who did not purify himself had defiled the sanctuary of the LORD and was to be cut off from among the congregation (Numbers 19:20).

Background

The Hebrew word rendered "red" denotes a reddish or reddish-brown color. The precise color of the animal cannot be determined with certainty.

The text calls this rite "a purification for sin" (Numbers 19:9). It differs from other Old Testament sacrifices, however, in that the entire animal was burned outside the camp rather than on the altar. Cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet thread are also used together in the rite for cleansing a person healed of leprosy (Leviticus 14:4).

In the Old Testament, a corpse is treated as the source of the gravest form of uncleanness. For this reason the ordinance is explained as a means by which Israel, living around the tabernacle, could return to the community after an encounter with death.

Connection in the New Testament

Hebrews 9:13-14 states that if "the ashes of an heifer" sanctified the unclean to the purifying of the flesh, the blood of Christ will much more purge the conscience from dead works. Hebrews 13:11-12 is also read alongside it. That passage says that just as the bodies of sacrificial animals were burned outside the camp, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, though it does not refer directly to the red heifer.

Interpretation and Issues

• A paradoxical ordinance: The ashes purify the unclean, yet those who prepare and handle the ashes themselves become unclean until evening (Numbers 19:7-10). Jewish tradition has long regarded this ordinance as the classic example of a chok (statute), a law whose reasons cannot be fully comprehended.
• Typology: Typology is an interpretive approach that reads persons, things, and institutions of the Old Testament as shadows foreshadowing Christ. Since the early Christian Epistle of Barnabas, interpreters have read such features as the unblemished animal and its death outside the camp as types of Christ. Other interpreters caution against assigning meaning to every detail, such as the color or the scarlet thread, beyond what Hebrews itself says. Hebrews describes the law as "a shadow of good things to come" (Hebrews 10:1).
• Later tradition and eschatology: The Mishnah, a Jewish text, preserves a tradition that only nine red heifers were offered from the time of Moses until the destruction of the Second Temple. The medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides is reported to have written that the tenth would be offered in the days of the Messiah. All of these are later traditions not found in the biblical text.
• Contemporary discussion: In recent years, some groups in Israel have drawn media attention by attempting to raise red heifers with a view to rebuilding the Temple. Some Christians interested in dispensationalist eschatology interpret this as a sign of the end times. Other interpreters, following Hebrews, hold that this institution has already been fulfilled in Christ and point out that Scripture does not directly connect the red heifer with end-time events.

In the Korean Church

In expository preaching that works sequentially through Numbers or Hebrews and in Bible study, the passage is treated as a text that explains the cleansing obtained through the blood of Christ.