Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

19:1-22 Cleansing from Death. Life and death are the two poles of existence inside and outside the Bible. Holiness, God, and life are associated in Scripture, whereas uncleanness, sin, and death also belong together (see chart). Human corpses caused the gravest kind of pollution under the Mosaic system, affecting all who approached them. Thus those who have contact with the dead must keep away from the sanctuary and undergo cleansing. This rite is designed to provide ritual cleansing for all who have been near or touched corpses. This is especially relevant here in view of the numerous deaths reported in the preceding chapters (14:37; 15:36; 16:32, 35, 49) and those that follow (20:1, 28; 21:6, 35; 25:9; 31:7).

19:1-10 The Recipe for Producing the Cleansing Ash. a red heifer without defect . . . on which a yoke has never come (v. 2). Its youth shows its fullness of life, while its redness speaks of blood, the most effective agent of atonement. The redness of cedarwood and scarlet (v. 6) may also be significant. Hyssop (v. 6) is also used for cleansing (Ps. 51:7). The same ingredients are used in the cleansing of a leper (Lev. 14:4). The ashes are described as a sin offering (Num. 19:9), an offering designed to cleanse both the sanctuary and the worshiper (see Leviticus 4). Those engaged in making this cleansing ash paradoxically incur a mild uncleanness themselves (Num. 19:7-8, 10; see also v. 21).

19:11-22 The Cleansing Procedure. The process of the cleansing ash (see note on vv. 1-10) has two phases: it involves sprinkling water (with some ash in it) on the affected person or tent on the third day after contamination and also on the seventh day. On the seventh day he must also bathe himself and wash his clothes. The sprinkling does not have to be done by a priest, just a clean person (vv. 18-19). Failure to carry out this rite is serious: it defiles the tabernacle, and that person shall be cut off (i.e., die; see notes on 9:6-14; 15:30-31; see also 19:13, 20). Hebrews 9:13-14 notes that the blood of Christ is even more effective in its cleansing power: it will purify the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. These regulations were intended for Israel; now that Christ has come, Christians do not need purification rites such as these.