Chapter 19
Starts this way - a second time the Lord speaks directly to Aaron, along with Moses:
1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, [Num 19:1 ESV]
2021 - The MSB note on 18:1 says that only there and in Lev 10:8 does the Lord speak directly to Aaron. So...what does 19:1 mean? MSB says nothing, as might be expected. But MSB does talk about the reason for the red heifer and all that is associated with it. Over 40 years, 1.2 million or so were going to die. The people were constantly, daily dealing with dead bodies. This made them ceremonially unclean. So this special provision is made to cleanse them from this contact.
Rules as to the red heifer. Purification? The red heifer, never yoked, was to be taken outside the camp, slaughtered, and every piece and part burned. Then some of it's blood was to be sprinkled toward the tent of meeting seven times. This was all to be done by Eleazar, not Aaron. Cedarwood, hyssop, and scarlet yarn were to be thrown into the fire while the heifer burned. (2021 - Weren't these the same items used to determine if a woman had committed secret adultery? Perhaps also the same items used when a healed leper was purified before re-entering the camp? Why these items???) When done, the priest was to wash his clothes and bathe his body in water before returning to the camp. (2024 - Looks like Eleazar was to be present during the burning, but a different priest was "hands on" in the burning.) Even so, the priest remained unclean until evening. A clean person was then to gather up the ashes and deposit them in a clean place. They would be used for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel. As in, these ashes were mixed with water and used to ceremonially cleanse those who had in some way (2024 - No, it was specifically for people or items that had touched, or been too near, a dead body. A human corpse.) become unclean. We're not given the actual recipe for that water - at least not here - but the ashes were in it. MSB note says that this image of the red heifer burned completely outside the camp is taken up in Hebrews 13:11-13 as it relates to Christ's death outside of Jerusalem. So the result of the red heifer being sacrificed outside the camp is a means of purification from uncleanness, so that one might return to the presence of God in the camp. No one unclean could approach the tent of meeting lest they die as a result. In the larger sense, no sinner under the new covenant can have direct access to God except through the shed blood of Christ, and through Jesus as advocate with the Father. God sees us through the purifying blood of Christ as God saw those purified by the water made from the red heifer's ashes in the encampment of Israel. God dwelt in their camp - right there with them. They had to be clean or He would have to kill them for approaching and bringing uncleanness into His presence. We are all unclean, and also sentenced to death except we be purified with Christ's blood.
2024 - But this is more than that...Dead bodies are the key to understanding this. We are all "dead bodies". We are born dead basically. 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ... 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- [Eph 2:1, 5 ESV].
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, [Col 2:13 ESV].
Those unclean because of proximity to death - those born again from the dead upon salvation - must still be purified, or the will remain unclean. They must be 'sprinkled" with purifying water on the third and seventh days, and after they are purified by this water, THEN they wash themselves in water. So we ought not think of the red heifer as having to do with sin. The red heifer is about purifying uncleanness CAUSED BY death. Jesus was killed outside the camp, as the red heifer is killed outside. His blood, shed outside the camp, in addition to being payment for our sins - and an atoning sacrifice at that - also purifies us from the uncleanness of our previous state, in which we are dead to Christ, and cannot help ourselves, and we must be reborn through his blood to become pure enough to "enter the camp", to approach the tent where God is. In this case, in the New Covenant, we are cleansed enough by Jesus' blood to walk right into God's presence, bypassing the buffers and restrictions we saw in Chapter 18.
2024 - Here are the verses from Hebrews referenced above by MSB:
11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. [Heb 13:11-13 ESV]. As I read it, this quote is NOT about the red heifer at all. This is about sin offerings. These were killed IN the camp, the best parts of them burned on the altar, and the rest of them was burned outside the camp. These ashes are not used for anything. Hebrews is telling us that Jesus' death outside the camp sanctifies us - makes us holy to God - by removing our sins from us. Cleansing them away. What is added then by this quote is that Jesus death outside the camp had more than one symbolic meaning - more than one "tie" back to the Law which his death fulfilled. We should see that as a sin offering, Jesus best was given to God - because he was sinless - during his life, and then all sins for all time were on him as he was crucified (read "burned") outside the camp. The sins are burned up, and no more. In addition to that, as the red heifer is burned up and the ashes used to purify us from death, Jesus dying outside the camp purifies us from "the body of this death" into which we are born as descendants of Adam.
If one touched a dead body, they were unclean seven days, and were to cleanse themselves with some of the water on day 3 and day 7, else they were still unclean. To remain unclean was to defile the tabernacle, and that person would be cut off from his people. So the red heifer was exclusively about purification of those who had touched dead bodies or been in a tent with a dead body, and it was used to purify the tent itself. Anything defiled by contact or proximity with a dead body had to have this water of purification or it remained unclean.
There is a good study here. It seems as though the red heifer's ashes were used only in purification for those who touched dead bodies. How exactly does this image foretell or symbolize the work of Christ on the cross? How is Jesus' death about cleansing from touching dead bodies? Or is that too literal? Need to look more into this.
2021 - It seems that a red heifer would be sacrificed in this way whenever they were low on ashes to make this purifying water. It does not seem that it was an annual thing, or on any schedule at all. It was an as needed sacrifice. All this time I have thought there was some big huge deal about the red heifer, but in fact it seems to be a "filler" that was only required because of God's curse on the adult population for balking at the border of Canaan. 2023 - and only following Korah's rebellion and the consequent expansion of the "buffer zone" around the tent of meeting.
2021 - The attention given even to items near a person who died makes it clear that dead bodies were very unclean. God does not want to be associated with dead bodies, no matter how many degrees the contact is removed. As in someone who was in a tent with a dead body touching a glass in his own tent and then someone else drinking from that glass. That last person is also unclean for seven days, and if that person isn't purified by the ashes of the red heifer, they are cut off for defiling the tabernacle. But all this red heifer stuff is finally clear to me. I get what it is for. I had "elevated" it's importance because I know that some are trying their best to produce a red heifer. I thought it was somehow critically related to end times events. But that is not the case as I understand it now.