1. And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
2. This 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:
3. And 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:
4. And 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:
5. And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:
6. And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.
7. Then 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.
8. And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even.
9. And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin.
10. And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: and it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them, for a statute for ever.
11. He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
12. He 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.
13. Whosoever 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.
14. This 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.
15. And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean.
16. And 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.
17. And 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:
18. And 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:
19. And 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.
20. But 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.
21. And 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.
22. And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even. (Numbers 19:1-22)
This chapter is a favorite with some commentators who find it of great interest because they see it as a relic of primitivism incorporated into the Bible. All kinds of strange theories are advanced to “explain” and exploit this rite, and it has been the subject of encyclopedia articles. While the term “red heifer” is used, in modern terms it is better called a red or reddish brown cow; our use of “heifer” means an unbred cow; in Scripture, it means a younger cow. It had to be without blemish and never yoked (v. 2). The red heifer was burned outside the camp (v. 3, 5). The ashes of the heifer were carefully kept and then used, mixed with water, to purify those who had been in contact with the dead (vv. 11ff). When the red cow had been sacrificed and was burning, cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet (perhaps wool) were cast into the fire.
This took place outside the camp, which was holy because God’s sanctuary was in the center.
God being holy and the creator of life, death could not be associated with His presence. Death was and is the penalty for sin, so that even the death of a godly man is a reminder of the fact of a fallen creation and fallen man.
The ashes of the red heifer were mixed with spring water (v. 17), called “running water” in the Authorized Version. This was dipped into and sprinkled over those needing purification on the third and seventh day after defilement (vv. 17-19). Touching the dead, or a bone, or being under the same roof as the dead, required this rite. No man was permitted to regard death as a normal or natural fact; sin and death are deformations of God’s creation, and this rite’s purpose was to remind one and all of this fact. Life is normal, death abnormal, in God’s sight and purpose.
For Lord Keynes, the key fact of life was that, in the long run, we are all dead, both as individuals, civil governments, and states. His economic theory rested on this fact. As against this, the red heifer rite is a reminder that death is a perversion of God’s creation which shall finally be destroyed. Paul tells us, “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor.
15:26).
The reddish brown color of the heifer has from ancient times to the present suggested or typified blood or death. It has thus been common in the church to see the red heifer as typifying Christ’s atonement. The apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas gives much attention to this rite, and in Hebrews 9:13-14 we are told:
13. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14. 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?
“Dead works” are contrasted to living works, and the living works are a result of Christ’s atonement, far more efficacious than the ashes of a red heifer.123
In v. 17, the ashes of the burnt heifer are described as being for “purification for sin.” This can be rendered as “for un-sin-ment.”124 We dare not regard sin and evil as normal in God’s creation.
The goal of redemptive history is the “un-sin-ment” of all things. The rite ended when the person was bathed and put on freshly washed clothing.
Any man rejecting this ritual was excommunicated (v. 13) and regarded as thenceforth unclean, comparable to a leper. God takes very seriously His requirement that we reject the normality of sin and evil. This rule would render most modern churchmen excommunicates because they expect the world to go from bad to worse. Instead of being God’s warriors for the “unsinment” of all things, they have too often become believers in the triumph of sin. Their faith then becomes a form of escapism, of leaving this world instead of “unsinning” it.
This was a religious rite but not an act of worship. It was an affirmation of faith in God’s purpose and the world’s future under God, its “unsinment.” The church today is very much in need of some form, rite, or act whereby the defeat of sin, evil, and death is celebrated, and the saving power of God, and eternal life in Him, are celebrated. Aspects of this celebration remain in some traditional funeral services, calling the attention of all, at the time of entombment, to the inevitable triumph of Christ, justice, and life.
The curious fact is that scholars have seen no relationship between this chapter and Numbers 18;
it is seen as alien and out of place. The relationship, however, is an essential one. In Numbers 18, God requires the support of His clergy and clerisy, of worship, education, and scholarship.
Without this, there can be no advance. Now we are told what must characterize God’s faithful people, especially pastors and scholars. They cannot be oriented to failure or to defeat. They must be radically dedicated to life under God and His law. Men render themselves excommunicates and outlaws before God by denying His inevitable victory. This does not mean the affirmation of our nation’s victory, or our sanctuary’s inviolability, but God’s total victory over all His enemies. God’s pastors and scholars have a duty to proclaim a victorious God and Christ, or else pay the price of faithlessness.
The water of cleansing is called in the Hebrew the “water of impurity,” and the word impurity is nidda, which refers to the woman’s menstrual discharge. The meaning thus is that the water is for the removal of impurity. In Noordtzij’s words, “Everything here speaks of the restoration of life.”125 We must not forget that the world of antiquity, and especially Israel, had a sufficient memory of Eden to regard death as abnormal and unclean. We now see it as normal because of the triumph of Darwinism. Riggans said of this chapter, “What is clear is that the symbols are designed to combat death.”126 To combat death! This sets forth the calling of God’s people, and
especially pastors and scholars. We fight more than men and ideas: we are at war against sin, evil, and death.
Central to that warfare is the death of Christ, whose death destroys death. Our charter of freedom is thus the atonement and the resurrection, whereby we are cleansed from the pollution of sin, which is death, and are made a new creation in Christ.
It is a sad fact that rabbis and Christian commentators have not seen this rite as important. The late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire wrote, “This ordinance is the most mysterious rite in Scripture, the strange features of which are duly enumerated by the Rabbis.”127
There is, perhaps, a reference to this rite in David’s psalm of repentance. In Psalm 51:7, David prays, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
Hyssop ash was a part of the red heifer formula.
This chapter tells us that sin must be abolished to destroy death. In the words of R.
Winterbotham,
We have in this chapter, spiritually, death, and the remedy for death. Death is treated of not as the mere physical change which is the end of life, nor as the social and domestic loss which breaks so many hearts and causes so many tears to flow, but as the inseparable companion and, as it were, alter ego of sin, whose dark shadow does not merely blight, but pollutes, which shuts out not so much the light of life as the light of God.128
There is an unusual phrase in v. 2, “This is the ordinance of the law.” This is comparable to saying, “This is the law of the law.” Strong attention is thereby called to what follows. Again we see its relationship to Numbers 18, tithing, and the work of the clergy and clerisy. The Levitical tithe had as its purpose to make us future oriented. Numbers 19 tells us that we must be oriented to life and victory, because death is abnormal. True Christian scholarship must therefore be life affirming because it is Christian.
There is a reference to this ritual in Numbers 31:19-24.
The Bible repeatedly speaks of man’s frailty. Abraham, in speaking to God, says, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes” (Gen. 18:27). Ethan the Ezrahite, in Psalm 89:48, observes,
What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?...
David contrasts our frailty with God’s mercy:
13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
14. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
15. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
16. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
17. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children;
18. To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. (Psalm 103:13-18)
These all describe the consequences of the fall. As Oehler observed, “this does not mean that death originally belonged to man’s nature.”129 Man was created to live and serve God; this is again His calling in Christ, to work for Christ’s triumph and the “unsinment” of the world and its peoples.
Douglas Murray has called my attention to the prevalence of “death education” in statist schools.
Samuel L. Blumenfeld has written much about this also. This is a logical development of the teachings of Darwinism and evolution. The source and end of all things is seen as universal death and nothingness. What is ultimate is also that which is alone good, hence death education and a growing suicide rate among public school youth.