The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 259

HOMILETICS. Vera. 1- 22, -The remedy of death.. We ha.ve in this chapter, spiritually, death, and the remedy for death. Death ia treated of not as the mere physical change which ia the end of life, nor a.a the social and domestic lose which breaks so many hearts and causes so many tears to flow, but a.a the inseparable companion and, as it were, alter ego of sin, whose dark shadow does not merely blight, but pollutes, which shuts out not so much the light of life as the light of God. It is death, not as he is to the dead, but as be is to the living, and to them in their religious life. It is true that according to the letter it is physical death only which is spoken of, and the ceremonial uncleanness which ensued upon contact with it. It is true also that this nncleanness, so minutely regulated, and so held in abhorrence, was a matter of superstition. The last relics of religious feeling (or, upon another view, its first dawnrngs) in the lowest savages take the form of a superstitious dread of the lifeless remain.s of the departed and of their resting-pince. There is in truth nothing in the touch of the dead which can infect or contaminate the living, or affect in the least their moral and spiritual condition. Nevertheless, most of the nations (and especially the Egyptians) elaborated the primitive superstition of their forefathers into a code of religious sentiment and observance which took a firm hold of the popular mind. It pleased God to adopt this primitive nnd widespread superstition (as m so many other cases) into his own Divine legislation, and to make it a vehicle of deep and important spiritual truths, and an instrument for preparing the national mind and conscience for the glorious revelation of life and incorruption through Christ. Only in the light of the gospel can the treatment of death in this chapter be edifying or indeed intelligible, for otherwise it were only the imposition ot a ceremonial yoke, extremely burdensome in itself, and grounded upon a painful superstition. But it is sufficient to point out that death is only treated of in connection with its remedy, even ae eternal death is only clearly revealed in that gospel which tells us of ever- lasting life. In this remedy for death we have one of the most remarkable types of the atonement, and of its application to th! cleansing of individual eo~ls, to be fou~d in the Old Testament. The \'"ery exceptional character of the ordmance, and its isolation from the body of the Mosaic legislation ; the singular and apparently con- tradictory character of its details, as well llB the great importance ai;eigned to it both in the ordinance itsell and in the practice of the Jews ; would have led us to look for some eminent and distinctive foreshadowings of the one Sacrifice once offered. The New Testament confirms this natural expectation, not indeed dwelling upon details,' but ranking '' the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean" side by side with u the blood of bulls and of goats " as typifying the more prevailing expiation made ~y Christ. We have therefore' in this ordinance Christ himself in the oneness of Ins election and sacrifice; Chr~t in the perfectness, freedom, and gentlenei;e of his untainted life ; Chrii;t in many circumstances of his rejection o.nd do~th; Christ in en. XIX. 1--22.] 'l'HE BOOK ·OF NUMBERS. 243