was perhaps almost the only one they had in the ashes, while, as it were, so redolent of the wilderneSB, and those which ou~ht to death that they must be kept outside the have been offered continually according to camp, were most holy, and were to he laid the Levitical ordinances. The red heifer up by a clean man in a clean place (ver. 9). stood quite outside the number of ordinary Theso contradictions find their true explana- victims as demanded by the law, and there- tion only when we consider them as fore- fore it was not sis.in at any hallowed altar, shadowing the mysteries of the atonement. nor, necessarily, by any hallowed hand. 3. Ver. 9.-For a water o! separation, i. e. a It served to prefigure in a wonderful and water which should remedy the state of legal indeed startling way the sacrifice of Christ separation due to the defilement of death, ,outside the gate. In later days the heifer was just as in eh. viii. the water of purification .conducted upon a. don ble tier of arches over from sin iii called the water of sin. the ravine of Kedron to the opposite slope of Ver. 10.-It shall be unto the children Olivet. 7hat he ma7 bring her forth, . . of Israel .. e. 1t&tnte for ever. This may and one shall sla7 her, The nominative to refer only to the former part of the verse, both these verbs is alike unexpressed. Sep• according to the analogy of ver. 21, or it tuagint, ,cai l(d(o111m, .. «al crt/>a(ovo-.v. In may refer to the whole ordinance of the red the practice of later ages the high priest led heifer. her out, a.nd another priest killed h~r in his Ver. 11.-Shall be unclean seven days. presence, but it wa.s not so commanded. The fact of defilement by contact with the Ver. 4. -And Eleaze.r .. she.II .. sprinkle dead had been mentioned before (Levit. :a:xi. of her blood directly before ('.~fl n;,j·',~) l; Numb. v. 2; vi. 6; ix.6),a.ndhadnodoubt the te.bernacle. By this act the death of been recognised as a religious pollution from the heifer became a. S1Lcri.ficial of:fe1-ing. The ancient times ; but the enct period of con- sprinkling in the direction of the sanctuary sequent uncleanness is here definitely fixed. intimated that the offering was made to him Ver. 12.-With it. 1.11. I. e., as the senso that dwelt therein, and the "seven times" clearly demands, with the water of separa- was the ordinary number of perfect perform- tion. ance (Levit. iv. 17, &c.). Ver. 13.-Deflleth the tabernacle of the Ver. 5.-0ne shall burn the heifer. See Lord. On the bearing of this remarkablo on Exod. :a:xix. 14. And her blood. In all announcement see Levit. :a:v. 31. The un- other casea the blood was poured away beside cleanness of death was not simply a personal the altar, because in the blood was the life, matter, it involved, if not duly purged, the a.nd the life was given to God in exchange whole eongre!ration, and reached even to for the life of the offerer. This great truth, God himself, for its defilement spread to the which underla7 all animal sacrifices, was sanctuary. Out oft' from Israel, i. e. ex• represented in this case by the sprinkling communicate on earth, and liable to the towards the sanctuary. The rest of the direct visitation of Heaven (cf. Gen. :a:vii. blood wa.s burnt with the carcase, either 14). becat1se outside the holy precincts there we.s Ver. H.-7hie is the law. MJ\T-11:). By no consecrated earth to receive the blood, or this law the extent of the infection is rigidly in order that the virtue of the blood might defined, as its duration by the last. In e. in a figure pass into the ashes and add to tent. This fixes the date of the law as given their efficacy. in the wilderness, but it leaves in some UD• Ver. 6.-0edar wood, and eoarlet, e.nd certainty the rule as to settled habitations. 2!.71sop. See on Levit. :a:iv. 4-6 for the 'fbe Septuagint, however, has here 111 olri9, llignilioo.~~ of the~ !hings. The antiseptic and therefore it would appear that the law and medicinal qualities of the cedar (Jwni• was transferred without modification from pert/,// cr.mJcednM) and hyssop (probably Cap- tho tent to the house. In the case of large P_ar:u' spiMsa) make. their use readily intel, houses with many inhabitants, some relaxn· ligible; the symbolism of the "scarlet" is tion of the strictness must have been founJ. much more obscure. necesse.ry. Ver. 7.-The priest she.II be unolee.n until Ver. 15.-Whioh hath no oovering bound the even, i. e. the priest who superintended upon it. So the Septuagint (011a otixi J,11µ.011 the sacrifice, and dipped his finger in the r:araoioirai l,r' ah~). and this is the sense. blood. Every one of these details was de- In tho Hebrew ?•i:,p, e. string, stands in vised in order to expre~s the intensely infec, tious cha.meter of dea.th in its moral aspect. tlpposition to 1'r:l'¥, a covering. If the 'fhe. very ashes, which were so widely potent vessel WIIS open, its contents were polluted for clee.nsing (ver. 10), and the cleansing by the odour of death. water itself ·(ver. 19), made every one that Ver. 16.-0ne that is ■lain with a awor4, touched them, even for the purifying of This would npply especially, it would seem. another, himself unclean. At tho same timo to the field oi Lo.ttle ; but the lnw must t-UMllKll.ll, a THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [cu. XIX. 1-22~
certainly have been relaxed in the case of This formula usually emphasise, something ooldiern. Or a bone of a man, or a grave. of solemn importance. In this case, a.a ap- Thus the defilement was extended to the iiarently above in ver. 10 the regulations mouldering remains of humanity, and even thus enforced might seem o/ trifling moment. to the tombs (pvi}p.a-ra. Cf. Luke .xi 44) But the whole design of this ordinance down which held them. to its minutest detail, we.a to stamp upon Yer. 17,-R11llniug water. Septuagint, physical death a fa.r-reaching power of defil- ilowp l;wv (cf. Le'l'it. xiv. 5; John iv, 10). ing and separating from God, which extended Yer. 18.-Shall take hys,op. See Exod. even to the very means Divinely appointed xii. 22, and cf. Ps. Ii. 7. as a remedy. The Jew, whose religious feel- Ver. 19.-011 the third day, and on the ings were i:nodelled upon this law, must have seventh day. The tmee-repeated aj;lplica- folt himself entangled in the meshes of a. net tion of holy water marked the clmging so mdely cast about him that he could nature of the pollution t-0 be removed ; so hardly quite escape it by extreme caution also the repetition of the threat in the foJ. and multiplied observances ; he might indeed lomng verse marked the heinousness of the exclaim, nnless ha.bit hardened him to it, neglect to seek its removal " Who shall deliver me from the body of this Yer. 21.-It shall be a perpetual statute. . death?"