Numbers 19:2

_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:_ This is the ordinance of the law (Leviticus 4:14: cf. Hebrews 9:13) - an institution of a special nature ordained by law for the purification of sin, and provided at the public expense, because it was for the good of the whole community. RED HEIFER ... This is the only case in which the colour of the victim is specified; and it has been supposed the ordinance was designed in opposition to the superstitious notions of the Egyptians (Maimonides, 'De Vacca rufa;' Hengstenberg, 'Egypt and Books of Moses,' pp. 173-180; Carpenter, 'Scripture Natural History,' p. 845; Spen

2_This is the ordinance of the law. _Because it could not but occur that, whilst the faithful were engaged in the world, they should often contract some pollution by their contact with its many impurities, the composition of the water is here described, by the sprinkling of which they might wash away, and expiate their uncleanness: and then certain kinds of pollution are specified, whereof the purification is required. God commands that a red heifer should be slain, which had never been subjected to the yoke; and that it should be burnt without the camp, together with its skin and dung; that the ashes should be gathered by a man that was clean, and laid up without the camp for the common use of the people. But, in order that the water, which was mixed with these ashes, should have the power of reconciliation, God at the same time commands that the blood should be sprinkled seven times be...

1-10 The heifer was to be wholly burned. This typified the painful sufferings of our Lord Jesus, both in soul and body, as a sacrifice made by fire, to satisfy God's justice for man's sin. These ashes are said to be laid up as a purification for sin, because, though they were only to purify from ceremonial uncleanness, yet they were a type of that purification for sin which our Lord Jesus made by his death. The blood of Christ is laid up for us in the word and sacraments, as a fountain of merit, to which by faith we may have constant recourse, for cleansing our consciences....

Verse Numbers 19:2. _SPEAK UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL THAT THEY BRING_ _THEE, C._] The ordinance of the red heifer was a sacrifice of general application. All the people were to have an interest in it, and therefore the people at large are to provide the sacrifice. This Jewish rite certainly had a reference to things done under the Gospel, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has remarked: "For if," says he, "the blood of bulls and of goats," alluding, probably, to the sin-offerings and the scape-goat, "and the ashes of a _heifer_, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh 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!" Hebr...

A RED HEIFER - Red, in order to shadow forth man’s earthly body, even as the name Adam bears allusion to the red earth of which man’s body was fashioned. WITHOUT SPOT, WHEREIN IS NO BLEMISH - As with sin-offerings generally Leviticus 4:3. UPON WHICH NEVER CAME YOKE - So here and elsewhere (see the marginal references), in the case of female victims....

EXPOSITION THE ASHES OF AN HEIFER SPRINKLING THE UNCLEAN (Numbers 19:1). NUMBERS 19:1 AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES AND UNTO AARON. On the addition of the second name see on Numbers 18:1. There is no note of time in connection with this chapter, but internal evidence points strongly to the supposition that it belongs to the early days of wandering after the ban. It belongs to a period when death had resumed his normal, and more than his normal, power over the children of Israel; when, having been for a short time expelled (except in

THIS [IS] THE ORDINANCE OF THE LAW WHICH THE LORD HATH COMMANDED,.... By which it appears, that this law was not of the moral, but of the ceremonial kind, being called an ordinance, a statute, a decree of God, the King of kings; and which was founded not on any clear plain reason in the thing itself, but in the will of God, who intended it as a type and shadow of the blood and sacrifice of Christ, and of the efficacy of that to cleanse from sin; and it also appears by this, that it was not a new law now made, but which had been made already: "which the Lord hath commanded": as is plain from what has been observed, Numbers 19:1; and the Jews q say, that the red heifer was slain by Eleazar the day after the tabernacle was erected, even on the second day of the first month of Israel's coming out of Egypt; and it was now repeated both on account of the priests and people, because of the prie...

Numbers 19:1. _And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,_ This ordinance was not given to Moses on Mount Sinai, but in the wilderness of Paran, after the people had broken their covenant with God, and were condemned to die. You know that the 90 th Psalm that dolorous dirge which we read at funerals, called, «a prayer of Moses the man of God.» Well might he write that Psalm, for he lived among a generation of people who were all doomed to die within a short time, and to die in the wilderness. This ordinance was especially appointed to meet the cases of those who were rendered unclean by the frequent deaths which occurred. There was to be a simple and easy way of purification for them; and the teaching of this chapter to us is that, inasmuch as we dwell in a sinful world, there needs to be some simple and ready method of cleansing us, that we may be able to draw near to G

RED HEIFER The red heifer: Type of the sacrifice of Christ as the ground of the cleansing of the believer from the defilement contracted in his pilgrim walk through this world, and illustration of the method of his cleansing. The order is: (1) the slaying of the sacrifice; (2) the sevenfold sprinkling of the blood, typical public testimony before the eyes of all of the complete and never-to-be-repeated putting away of all the believer's sin as before God. (Hebrews 9:12); (Hebrews 10:10). (3) the reduction of the sacrifice to ashes which are preserved and become a memorial of the sacrifice; (4) the cleansing from defilement (sin has two aspects -- guilt and uncleanness) by sprinkling with the ashes mingled with water. Water is a type of both the Spirit

9. THE RED HEIFER AND THE WATER OF PURIFICATION CHAPTER 19 _ 1. The provision appointed: The red heifer and the ashes (Numbers 19:1)_ 2. The use of the water of purification (Numbers 19:11) This is a most interesting chapter. The ordinance of the red heifer and the water of purification is nowhere mentioned in Leviticus. The day of atonement, so prominent in Leviticus, is not referred to in Numbers at all. The provision of the water of purification is characteristic of the wilderness book. The people were dying by the thousands, and means had to be provided for the cleansing of those who became defiled by contact with the dead. The ashes of the red heifer used in the way as described in this chapter were for the cleansing of the defiled. Without following the details of th