Numbers 19--Laws for Purification

Numbers 19
English Standard Version

Laws for Purification
19 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 “This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come. 3 And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him. 4 And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. 5 And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. 6 And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the heifer. 7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. But the priest shall be unclean until evening. 8 The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening. 9 And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering. 10 And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.

11 “Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days. 12 He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean. 13 Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him.

14 “This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. 15 And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean. 16 Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. 17 For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel. 18 Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave. 19 And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean.

​20 “If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. Because the water for impurity has not been thrown on him, he is unclean. 21 And it shall be a statute forever for them. The one who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening. 22 And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.”

---

We're now about halfway through the book of Numbers.  As you've seen, we're going back and forth between historical narrative and then instructions given by the Lord and then the historical narrative continues and then more instruction from the Lord and so on.  This chapter will end this period of instruction following the season of rebellion that we associate with the first time that spies were sent into the Promised Land.

This passage tells the people how to deal with being unclean.  We've read most of these instructions in Leviticus already as they were given there to the priests, but now the instructions are being given to all the people that this is God's answer to them being unclean so that they need not be in a perpetual state of uncleanliness.

The man who is unclean because he has touched a dead body or was in the dwelling with the person when they died had to cleanse themselves on the third day and the seventh day.  If they did not, then they were to continue to be unclean and would defile the Tabernacle and were to be cut off from the people for this intentional rebellion against the Tabernacle, the Lord, and His people.

As for the ceremony with the red heifer, it is not explained anywhere else in the Scriptures, but it seems like this was a ceremony of purification for the entire community (such as was needed in this instance when all of them had rebelled against the Lord and His sanctuary).  The Jews are currently awaiting the day when they Temple will once again be located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and they will conduct this ceremony to clean the Temple Mount and the Temple and the people of Israel.  While we know that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Temple and that the Holy Spirit now tabernacles among the people of God as our hearts are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we also look forward to that day when heaven and earth will be one and the heavenly temple will be our dwelling place for ever and ever.  Before that happens though, there will be one more Temple here on earth that is yet future to us--the Temple which Antichrist will desecrate and defile when he sets up an image of himself for the people to worship in the Temple.  So, when the Lord's timing is right, there will be a time of purification among the Jews when they will turn to Jesus as Messiah, Lord, and Savior, and this will be the beginning of the end.  There will be 144,000 faithful martyrs from the house of Israel--12,00 from each of the 12 Tribes.  We await the day when our Jewish brothers and sisters are not just purified externally, but are purified by the blood of Christ and are reconnected to the Vine and the words of Romans 11:26-27 will be fulfilled:

Romans 11:26-27
English Standard Version
​26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
    he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
27 “and this will be my covenant with them
    when I take away their sins.”