Numbers 19:9

_AND HE THAT BURNETH HER SHALL WASH HIS CLOTHES IN WATER, AND BATHE HIS FLESH IN WATER, AND SHALL BE UNCLEAN UNTIL THE EVEN._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

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 19:9. _FOR A WATER OF SEPARATION_] That is, the ashes were to be kept, in order to be mixed with water, Numbers 19:17, and sprinkled on those who had contracted any legal defilement....

WATER OF SEPARATION - In Numbers 8:7, the water of purification from sin is the “water of purifying.” So that which was to remedy a state of legal separation is here called “water of separation.”...

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

AND A MAN [THAT IS] CLEAN SHALL GATHER UP THE ASHES OF THE HEIFER,.... A man, a clean priest, as the Targum of Jonathan; in later times great care was taken that the priest concerned in the burning of the red cow should be pure; he was separated from his own house seven days before the time, and every day he was sprinkled with the blood of all sin offerings then offered, that it might be sure he was free from any pollution by a grave, or a dead body; and for the same reason they made a causeway on double arches from the temple to the mount of Olives, over the valley of Kidron, lest any unseen grave should be in the way; and when he came thither he was obliged to wash or dip himself, as before observed m; and so he that gathered up the ashes was to be clean from all ceremonial pollution: the Jews say n, that they pounded the ashes; if there were any black coal in them or bone, they did no...

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

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

THE PURIFICATION OF THE UNCLEAN THROUGH CONTACT WITH THE DEAD. This was effected by sprinkling the unclean person twice within seven days (Numbers 19:12 _mg._, Numbers 19:19) with running water, the virtue of which had been intensified by various ingredients, viz. the ashes of a red cow, cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet thread. The use of running water in such lustrations was doubtless based on the belief that springs and wells (pp. 100, 216) were the abodes of superhuman powers, and that a Divine quality pertained to water drawn from them, which was capable of neutralising impurity. Amongst the Greeks a vessel of spring water was placed at the door of a house where a death had occurred, for the purification of those who might become contaminated (_cf._ Eurip. _Alc._ 98- 100). But in the rit

MAN. Hebrew. _'ish._ App-14. Compare the antitype, Joseph of Arimathea. Matthew 27:57; Luke 23:50. Joh 19:38-42. SIN. See App-44....