Numbers 19 - Introduction

Purification by the ashes of a red cow

The chapter is an isolated section of priestly writing, having no connexion with the narrative of Korah and the privileges of priests and Levites (16 18), nor with the following narrative of the events at Kadesh (20). The regulations fall into two parts: (1) Numbers 19:1. The ingredients and effects of the purifying water in cases of pollution arising from contact with a dead body. (2) Numbers 19:14. An expanded, and stricter, form of Numbers 19:11, probably by a different hand.

The principle that contact with the dead causes pollution is primitive and wide-spread. Gray (Numb. 243 f.) gives instances from America, Africa, and Asia, and from ancient Greece and Rome. The particular method enjoined in this chapter for removing the pollution, though the chapter in its present form is the work of P, must have been based upon primitive usage. A red cow, which has no blemish and which has never been yoked, is to be brought to Eleazar and then led outside the camp and killed (Numbers 19:2). Eleazar is to sprinkle some of the blood seven times in the direction of the front (the Eastern end) of the Tent (Numbers 19:4); in his sight the cow, with all its parts complete, is to be burnt (Numbers 19:5); and upon the burning carcase he is to throw cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet thread (Numbers 19:6). The ashes mixed with water are to be used as the -water of impurity" (Numbers 19:9), with which are to be sprinkled any persons who incur pollution by contact with the dead (Numbers 19:11). This law is referred to in Numbers 31:19-24; and in Hebrews 9:13 f. a contrast is drawn between -the ashes of an heifer" which purify the flesh, and the blood of Christ which purifies the conscience from -dead works." The use of the -water of impurity" was not universal in Israel, for cases of pollution by the dead are dealt with by other means; see Leviticus 5:2; Leviticus 5:5-13 (unwitting contact with a dead animal), Numbers 11:24-28 (contact with the carcase of an unclean animal), Numbers 22:4-6 (the pollution of a priest who touches anything that is already polluted by the dead), Numbers 6:6-12 (the pollution of a Nazirite by touching the dead).