Numbers 19: The Water of Purification
1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 2 “This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come. 3 You shall give it to Eleazar the priest, that he may take it outside the camp, and it shall be slaughtered before him; 4 and Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood seven times directly in front of the tabernacle of meeting. 5 Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight: its hide, its flesh, its blood, and its offal shall be burned. 6 And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet, and cast them into the midst of the fire burning the heifer. 7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes, he shall bathe in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp; the priest shall be unclean until evening. 8 And the one who burns it shall wash his clothes in water, bathe in water, and shall be unclean until evening. 9 Then a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and store them outside the camp in a clean place; and they shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for the water of purification; it is for purifying from sin. 10 And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until evening. It shall be a statute forever to the children of Israel and to the stranger who dwells among them.
May the High Priest of our profession apply these precepts found in the ashes of the burnt victim to our souls. In Leviticus 1-7, “we have a very elaborate statement of the doctrine of sacrifice; and yet we have no allusion whatever to the red heifer. Why is this? What are we to learn from the fact that this beautiful ordinance is presented in the Book of Numbers and nowhere else? We believe it furnishes another striking illustration of the distinctive character of our book. The red heifer is, pre-eminently, a wilderness type. It was God's provision for defilements by the way, and it prefigures the death of Christ as a purification for sin, to meet our need in passing through a defiling world, home to our eternal rest above.”
(C. H. Mackintosh Notes on the Pentateuch)
Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring… “All the people were to have an interest in it, and therefore the people at large are to provide the sacrifice.” (Clarke) A red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come— “God, who sentences the unclean, appears now to relieve. No remedy could be devised by man. None could be credited, unless it brings heaven's seal. Faith cannot rest, but on a God-erected rock. But He provides, and He reveals… In the first place THE VICTIM IS SPECIFIED. But still the people must present it. Thus Christ, God's sacrifice for sin, is taken from earth's sons. That it may be so, He puts on our nature. He clothes Himself with humanity, as the Woman's Seed. So our race is enabled to give from its fold the sin-removing offering... The children of Israel must bring a Red Heifer. The HEIFER'S COLOR is precisely fixed. It must be red throughout, without one spot. Faith learns most precious lessons from this rule. What is Adam, but red earth? Hence, then, the ruddy type manifests our Lord, as Adam's offering. Yes, He is truly man, that He may take man's place, and bear man's guilt--and pay man's curse--and suffer in man's stead. The Heifer--RED--proclaims, that in nature Christ is verily what Adam was--sin always excepted--and verily what Adam's children are. Believer, rejoice. As man, you sinned--as man, you merit hell--but Christ has lived, and worked, and died, a God-man in your stead. BUT Scripture-types have many phases. PURE RED recalls the thought of blood. And can faith look to Jesus and not mark His streaming wounds? He stands in vesture dipped in blood. He shed it, and thus satisfies for sin. He shows it by the Spirit to the soul, and thus infuses peace. He pleads it before God, and thus obtains the blessings, which His Cross bought.
‘WITHOUT DEFECT OR BLEMISH.’ The Heifer must be perfect. This is a general requisition. Completeness must adorn each victim on God's altar. The slightest blemish was exclusion. This always shows our Jesus--spotless in perfection's brightest luster. Truly He was man, but truly He was man immeasurably far from sin. From the first breath, until His return in triumph to His throne, He was as clean from evil, as Jehovah in the highest. No sunbeam is more clear from darkness, than Jesus from sin's shadow. If it could have been otherwise, how could He have atoned for us? Sin's touch would have made Him subservient to justice. Death would have been due for His own faults. But now He gives His soul--His body--without one blemish, a pure--fit--all-sufficient sacrifice for all the sins of His most sinful flock. Such is the lesson from the Heifer without blemish. THE NECK ALSO MUST BE UNMARKED BY YOKE. It never may have yielded to compulsion's lash. It must be unused to imposed work. Thus Jesus bounds with willing step to Calvary, ‘Lo I come.’ Constraint compelled Him not. No force reluctantly dragged Him. His moving impulse was pure love--love for His Father's name--love for... [mortal] souls--love springing fresh from the deep fountains of His heart--love, as free as the air.” (Henry Law)
“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.” (Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown) He was to drag it outside the camp, and slaughter it and take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood seven times directly in front of the tabernacle of meeting. "Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight: its hide, its flesh, its blood, and its offal shall be burned…” "As a vile thing it is cast out. The dwelling place of man rejects it. The type is answered, when Jesus, reviled--despised--spit on--mangled--scorned, is led beyond the city's gates. Ignominy's cup then over flows. He is reproached, as vilest refuse. Believer, do not expect favor with the world. They, who scorned Jesus, will not honor you. Submit with His most lamb-like patience. Follow Him amid all sneers. Endure the cross. It raises to a crown.
Next it is SLAIN. And did not Jesus die? He did, for death was our desert. Therefore, He drank that cup. What grace what love! what glorious rescue! what complete redemption! what full atonement! In very deed the God-man dies. Believer, clasp the truth--exult--adore. When sins reproach--when conscience stings--when Satan rages--when the white throne is set, shout, 'Christ died [for me]!' This answers every charge--silences each adversary's voice--breaks Satan's chains--quenches hell's flames--tears out the worm's sting--annihilates destruction--brings in salvation. The truth, that Jesus died, is glory to God--glory for man--glory forever!
The Priest then turns towards the Mercy-seat, and seven times SPRINKLES THE BLOOD. The Gospel-story is replete with blood. We here again are taught its triumphs. It opens the door to the pure sanctuary above. It clears the way. None enter, but along this consecrated path. This sprinkling is the only key.
FIRE IS THEN APPLIED, and the whole Heifer is consumed. The unsparing element devours all, and soon reduces it to ashes. We see in this, how vengeance deals relentlessly with our sin-laden Surety. It only checks its hand, when no more can be taken. Sweet are the tidings, that no wrath remains for those, who die in Christ. Their agony is past--their punishment is paid--all now before them is eternity of love…” (Henry Law)
Those who touched the object of the sacred rite, which was typical of Christ, were ceremonial unclean until being washed and purified. (Num 19:7-10) Don't change it. This Jewish rite of the red heifer "certainly had a reference to things done under the Gospel, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has remarked: ‘For if,’ says he, ‘the blood of bulls and of goats,’ alluding, probably, to the sin-offerings and the scape-goat, ‘and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!’ (Heb 9:13-14). As the principal stress of the allusion here is to the ordinance of the red heifer, we may certainly conclude that it was designed to typify the sacrifice of our blessed Lord.” (Clarke) “Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” (Hebrews 13:12-16) - works by faith.
Then our cleansing by the High Priest of our confession will not be ceremonial only but actual-- the very cleansing of our souls.
Numbers 19: Uses of The Water of Purification
11 ‘He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days. 12 He shall purify himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean. 13 Whoever touches the body of anyone who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. That person shall be cut off from Israel. He shall be unclean, because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him; his uncleanness is still on him.
"This (ceremonial) 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." (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary)
Death reigned from Adam to Christ! And in this period, cleansing and making fit for the world to come was ever the business of the sanctuary. The priest had to keep the conscience of the seeker clean, so that they could draw near to God. And Yahweh made a way to be made ceremonial clean after contact with the dead. "He that toucheth the dead body . . . —The defilement caused by touching the dead body of a beast lasted only until the evening (Leviticus 11:24). The death of man was the wages of sin; and hence contact with the dead body of a man was attended by ceremonial defilement of longer duration…” (Ellicott)— any man, Jew or Gentile, as Aben Ezra observes. (Gill) All animals will be part of the resurrection unto life, but man must be saved- for all have sinned in ratification of Adam's rebellion.
"The verse may be rendered thus: He shall purify himself with it on the third day and on the seventh day; so shall he be clean; but if he purify not himself on the third day and on the seventh day, then he shall not be clean: so the LXX. and Vulg. (See Numbers 19:19.p)." (Ellicott)
“On the third day, to typify Christ’s resurrection on that day, by which we are cleansed or sanctified.
On the seventh day he shall be clean, to teach us that our purification in this life is gradual, and not perfect till we come to that eternal sabbath, which the seventh day respected.” (Poole)
Then he was clean: signifying the Spirit of God, applying anew the blood to the soul. The required double action "set forth the memorial of the sacrificial death of Christ, applied to the heart by the power of the Spirit of God. ‘He shall purify himself with it 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.' If we contract defilement… that defilement must be removed, ere our communion can be restored. But we cannot get rid of the soil by any effort of our own. It can only be by the use of God's gracious provision, even the water of purification. An Israelite could no more remove by his own efforts the defilement caused by the touch of a dead body, than he could have broken Pharaoh's yoke, or delivered himself from the lash of Pharaoh's taskmasters. And let the reader observe that it was not a question of offering a fresh sacrifice, nor yet of a fresh application of the blood. It is of special importance that this should be distinctly seen and understood. The death of Christ cannot be repeated. ‘Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him, For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, He liveth unto God.’” (C. H. Mackintosh's Notes on the Pentateuch)
Numbers 19: Other Uses of The Water of Purification
14 ‘This is the law when a man dies in a tent: All who come into the tent and all who are in the tent shall be unclean seven days; 15 and every open vessel, which has no cover fastened on it, is unclean. 16 Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain by a sword or who has died, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
“The instances adduced appear very minute and trivial; but important ends, both of a religious and of a sanitary nature, were promoted by carrying the idea of pollution from contact with dead bodies to so great an extent.” (Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown) “This is the law when a man dieth in a tent....A tent is only mentioned, because the Israelites now dwelt in tents, as Aben Ezra remarks; otherwise the law holds equally good of an house as of a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days; the meaning of which is, that all persons that come into a tent or house where a dead body is are equally unclean as those that were in it when it died; and the same is to be supposed of all vessels brought into it, as well as those that are in it, that is, open ones, as appears by what follows. And every open vessel... An earthen one, as the Targum of Jonathan; and so Jarchi interprets it; and Maimonides observes, that this is only to be understood of an earthen vessel: which hath no covering bound upon it; a linen or a woollen cloth wrapped and tied about it: [is] unclean; the air of the house getting into it by its being uncovered…, [signifying the temporary nature of their homes and natural bodies.]
And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields,.... That is killed by another, that dies a violent death, either by the sword or other means; one that touched such an one was unclean, or that touched the sword with which he was slain, as the Targum of Jonathan adds: ‘or a dead body’: that dies a natural death, or suddenly, or in any way: or a bone off a man; dug out of a grave, and lying by itself: or a grave; the Targum adds, either the covering or side of a grave: shall be unclean seven days; all which has respect to the defiling nature of sin, which is the cause of death and the grave.” (John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible)
17 ‘And for an unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the heifer burnt for purification from sin, and running water shall be put on them in a vessel. 18 A clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, sprinkle it on the tent, on all the vessels, on the persons who were there, or on the one who touched a bone, the slain, the dead, or a grave. 19 The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, wash his clothes, and bathe in water; and at evening he shall be clean. 20 But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean. 21 It shall be a perpetual statute for them. He who sprinkles the water of purification shall wash his clothes; and he who touches the water of purification shall be unclean until evening. 22 Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.’”
And for an unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the heifer burnt for purification from sin, and running water shall be put on them in a vessel. The precepts of atonement, signified by the ashes of the red heifer are mixed with running water. “Running water, i.e, waters flowing from a spring or river which are the purest. These manifestly signify God’s Spirit, which is oft compared to water, John 7:38,39, and by which alone true purification is obtained.” (Matthew Poole’s commentary) AND “A clean person shall take hyssop — In allusion to this David prays, Purge me with hyssop. Faith is the bunch of hyssop, wherewith the conscience is sprinkled and the heart purified. And the blood of Christ, being applied by faith, is termed, (Hebrews 12:24,) the blood of sprinkling, and with it we are said to be sprinkled from an evil conscience, (Hebrews 10:22,) that is, we are freed from the burden of distress, which arises from a sense of our guilt. And it is foretold that Christ should sprinkle many nations, Isaiah 52:15.” (Benson)
But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off…--he who will not submit to this ceremony. ”If he neglected this cleansing, he did not become clean, and he defiled the dwelling of Jehovah (see at Leviticus 15:31). Such a man was to be cut off from Israel (vid., at Genesis 17:14).” (Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary) Yet the priest who performs this cleansing ceremony shall himself be unclean as it is written, “He who sprinkles the water of purification shall wash his clothes; and he who touches the water of purification shall be unclean until evening.” “It is strange, that the same water should cleanse one person, and defile another. But God would have it so, to teach us that it did not cleanse by any virtue in itself, or in the work done, but only by virtue of God's appointment: to mind the laws of the imperfection of their priesthood, and their ritual purifications and expiations, and consequently of the necessity of a better priest and sacrifice and way of purifying; and to shew that the efficacy of God's ordinances doth not depend upon the person or quality of his ministers, because the same person who, was polluted himself could and did cleanse others.” (John Wesley)
I think this part of the law helped the priest to identify himself with the people of his parsonage, as Christ identifies with us. And “…we learn, as another has said, ‘That any one who has to do with the sin of another, though it be in the way of duty, to cleanse it, is defiled; not as the guilty person, it is true, but we cannot touch sin without being defiled.’ And we learn also that, in order to lead another into the enjoyment of the cleansing virtue of Christ's work, I must be in the enjoyment of that cleansing work myself. It is well to remember this. Those who applied the water of separation to others had to use that water for themselves. May our souls enter into this! May we ever abide in the sense of the perfect cleanness into which the death of Christ introduces us, and in which His priestly work maintains us!” (C. H. Mackintosh's Notes on the Pentateuch)
“Thanks be to GOD, that his people are now brought under that mild dispensation that though we are all in ourselves polluted, both by the death of our friends, and the dying state of ourselves, yet in the LORD JESUS, we are washed, we are sanctified, we are justified, by the SPIRIT of our GOD. Lead me to see, O LORD, in consecrated ashes, the incorruptible and everlasting efficacy of the righteousness of GOD my Saviour; and in the running water, the preciousness of that all-cleansing grace of the HOLY GHOST, the streams of which river makes glad the city of our GOD. May it be my portion, thus, to be cleansed daily from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, that I may perfect holiness in the fear of GOD.” (Hawker)