Numbers

19.1-22

It is easy to overlook the most significant of prophesies in this passage, because the red heifer is connected to so much writing about the end of days prophecies and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. There is much to be studied in this context, yet the Bible doesn't detail any specific consecration ritual for the Temple using the red heifer. The red heifer was primarily a means of purification for individuals and objects, enabling them to be considered pure enough to enter the holy space of the Temple. That is the key detail. The sacrifice in this passage is one that enables individuals to be considered pure enough to enter the place where God dwelt. The sacrifice was of one "in which there is no blemish, in which there is no defect" (Num 19:4). Peter did not mistake this connection in his letter to the chosen exiles:

"And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your sojourn, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your futile conduct inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ." 1 Peter 1:17–19

Neither did the author of the book of Hebrews:

"For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the trespasses that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood." Hebrews 9:13–18

As you read this passage, read it knowing that it is purposed to represent the substitutionary sacrifice that would one day be made on our behalf, by the One who is spotless and without defect, Who died to enable us to be considered pure enough to enter the place where God dwells. We are today, the fulfillment of this passage because of "the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God."
Amen.

CHAPTER 19

Statute of the Red Heifer

1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,
2 “This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel that they take to you a red heifer without blemish, in which is no defect and on which a yoke has never been placed.
3 ‘And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence.
4 ‘Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times.
5 ‘Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned.
6 ‘And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer.
7 ‘The priest shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening.
8 ‘The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening.
9 ‘Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity; it is purification from sin.
10 ‘And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the sojourner who sojourns among them.
11 ‘The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.
12 ‘That one shall purify himself from uncleanness with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and 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 ‘Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, makes the tabernacle of Yahweh unclean; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not splashed on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.
14 ‘This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.
15 ‘And every open vessel, which has no covering tied down on it, shall be unclean.
16 ‘Also, anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.
17 ‘Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel.
18 ‘And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave.
19 ‘Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening.
20 ‘But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly because he has made the sanctuary of Yahweh unclean; the water for impurity has not been splashed on him; he is unclean.
21 ‘So it shall be a perpetual statute for them. And he who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.
22 ‘Furthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.’”

Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Nu 19.