Chapter Nineteen

The sacrifice of the red heifer.

Numbers 19:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Numbers 19:2. This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the children of Israel to bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect, and upon which no yoke has been laid; For the purification offering a red heifer was used, because the crimson color symbolizes the sinful impurity of man. In the book of the prophet Isaiah (Isa 1:18) it is said: “If your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” According to the supposition of blessed Theodoret, the color of the sacrificial heifer could also point to the material (red earth) from which the body of the first fallen human was created. An animal of the female sex was appointed, probably because the female sex, as the bearing sex, could most vividly express the idea of spiritual rebirth from sinful death. “Without blemish, in which there is no defect,” according to the general rule for sacrificial animals. “And upon which no yoke has been laid,” and which, therefore, before being offered to the Lord, was not in service to human.

Numbers 19:3. and give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp to a clean place, and slaughtered before him; Numbers 19:4. and 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; Numbers 19:5. and the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned; Numbers 19:6. and the priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire in which the heifer is burning; Numbers 19:7. Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp; but the priest shall remain unclean until evening. Numbers 19:8. The one who burns it shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water, and shall remain unclean until evening; Numbers 19:9. then a clean person shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place; and they shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for the water of purification: it is a purification offering. Numbers 19:10. The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and remain unclean until evening. This shall be a perpetual statute for the children of Israel and for the alien residing among them. The sacrifice was offered, contrary to the rules for other sacrifices, outside the camp. The sprinkling with sacrificial blood was done in the direction toward the door of the tent. On the burning heifer the priest threw cedar wood, hyssop, and a thread of scarlet yarn. Following the guidance of the holy Apostle Paul about the prefigurative meaning of the red heifer sacrifice (Heb 9:13), the Fathers of the Church explain that the cedar wood signified the cross of the Lord; the scarlet thread signified the Lord’s blood; the hyssop signified the life-giving and sanctifying power of Christ’s grace; “sprinkle me with hyssop,” as it is said in Ps 50:9, “and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” And the slaughter of the heifer outside the camp prefigured the suffering of the Savior outside the walls of Jerusalem (blessed Theodoret, Commentary on the Book of Numbers, question 35; blessed Augustine gives the same explanation). The ashes of the burned heifer, diluted with “living (spring) water,” served as a means for removing from a person ceremonial impurity, prefiguring thereby the mystery of the new covenant baptism by water and the Spirit. The all-cleansing grace of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant Scripture is symbolically depicted under the image of “living water” (John 7:38-39). The high priest was freed from offering the red heifer as a sacrifice for the sins of the people, in order to avoid ceremonial impurity (Num 19:7), which was inadmissible in the high priest. Those required to participate in the sacrifice, being unclean until evening, had to first perform the rite of purification and then join the camp. The corpse of the red heifer (like the corpse of a human) was considered unclean, defiling whoever touched it, – both in general because of the close connection between death and sin, which brought forth death (Gen 3:19), and because of the special, specific purpose of the red heifer, symbolizing burned sin.

Numbers 19:11. Whoever touches the dead body of any human being shall be unclean seven days. Numbers 19:12. That person shall purify themselves with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean; but if they do not purify themselves on the third day and on the seventh day, they will not become clean; Numbers 19:13. All who touch a dead body, the body of a human who has died, and do not purify themselves, defile the dwelling of the Lord, and such persons shall be cut off from Israel. Since the water for impurity has not been dashed on them, they remain unclean; their uncleanness is still upon them. Numbers 19:14. This is the law: when someone dies in a tent, everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days. Numbers 19:15. And every open vessel that has no cover fastened to it is unclean. Numbers 19:16. Whoever in the open field touches one who has been killed by a sword, or who has died naturally, or who touches a human bone, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. Numbers 19:17. For the unclean they shall take some of the ashes of the burned purification offering, and fresh water shall be added to them in a vessel; Numbers 19:18. then a clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the furnishings, on the persons who were there, and on whoever touched the bone, the slain, the dead, or the grave; Numbers 19:19. The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean ones on the third day and on the seventh day, thus purifying them on the seventh day. Then they shall wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water, and at evening they shall be clean. Numbers 19:20. But if those who are unclean do not purify themselves, such persons shall be cut off from the congregation, for they have defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water for impurity has not been dashed upon them; they are unclean. Numbers 19:21. It shall be a perpetual statute for them. The one who sprinkles the water for purification shall wash his clothes; and whoever touches the water for purification shall be unclean until evening. Numbers 19:22. Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening. Cases of defilement are enumerated, for the removal of which the ashes of the red heifer, diluted with living water, were employed. “Whoever touches a dead body of a person – shall be unclean 7 days. If a person dies in a tent, then everything in the tent – shall be unclean 7 days. Any open vessel (in this tent) is unclean.” Apart from the aforementioned moral tendency (see note to Num 5:1-3), the commandments to protect oneself from contact with a human corpse and with what is in close association with it have enormous sanitary-prophylactic significance. “And whoever sprinkles the water for purification… and whoever touches the water for purification shall be unclean until evening,” as those who participated in cleansing from the impurity of sin: moral quarantine for the healer of moral ills.