The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 263

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-10, 17-19.-Purge me wul,, hyssop, and I shall be clean. This law respecting the purification of oue who has contracted uncleanness by contact with the dead must have been familiar to every Israelite. Death with impartial foot visits e,·ery house. No one can long remain a stranger to it. There 1s evidence, moreover, that this law did not fail to impress devout hearts, deepening in them the feeling of impurity before God and unfitness for his presence, and at the same time awakening the hope that there is in the grace of God a remedy for uncleanness. Hence David's prayer," Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." 'l'he law gives direction regarding- !. THE PURIFYING ELEMENT. 1. It was water, pure spring water (ver. 17). A most natural symbol, much used in the Levitical luatrations, and which is still in use in the Christian Church. At the door of the sanctuary there is still a ]aver. In the sacrament of baptism Chnst says to every candidate for admission into his house, •• If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." 2. In the present instance the as/us of a Bin offering were mingled wul,, tke wa.ter. A heifer was procured at the expense of the congrPgation,-red, unblemished, on which never yoke had come,- and it was slain as a sacrifice. The red heifer was e. true sin offering. It is so named in nrs. 9, 17 (Hebrew). But in several respects it differed remarkably from all the other sin offerings. Although the priest was to see it slain, and with his own finger sprinkled its blood to'\\"ard the holy place, he was forbidden to slay it himself; it was slain not at the altar, bnt outeide the cam}?, and the carcase was wholly consumed without being either flayed, or cleaned, or divided, or laid out in order. Besides, every one who took part in the sacrificial act was thereby rendered unclean; for which reason Ele~ar, not Aaron, was to do the priest's part-the high priest might not defile himself for any cause. Th&a.ahea of this singular offering were carefully presen-ed to be used to communicate purifying virtue to the water required for lustration from time to time. None of these details is without meanin~, if we -could only get at it. The points of chief importance are these :-(1) The sm offer- ing prefigured Christ in his offering himself without SP,0t to God (Heh. ix. 14). The singular rule which forbade the 11laying of the red heifer within the: precinct of tue camp, who does not see in it a prophecy of the fact that the Just One suffered the reproachful death of a malefactor without the gate of Jerusalem? (Heb. xiii. 12, 13). (2) Without prior expiation there could be no purification, and, conversely, expiation beir>g made, the way was open for purification. So when Christ had once offered himself "1thout spot to God, provision was thereby made for purging our consciences. There is a cleansing virtue·in the blood of Christ. The man who be1ievesin Christ ii! not only pardoned, but is so purified in his conscience that he no longer shrinks in shame from the eye of God, but draws near with holy confidence. II. Tax PURIFYING RITE (vere. 17-19). Nothing could be more simple. A few 4>articles of the ashes of the sin offering were put into a vessel of spring water ; this -was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop on the unclean person on the third day and again on the seventh, an act which any clean person could perform in any town; by th~ act the uncleanness was remond. A simple _rite, but not, therefore, optiono.l. Wilful neglect was a presumptuous sin. Gmeral llJS&IYM :-1. There is something in sin which unfita for the society of God, en~ XIX. 1-22.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 247