Red Heifer

The red heifer ordinance in Numbers 19 establishes a one-time slaughter whose ashes, mixed with living water, function as a perpetual remedy against corpse defilement. The chapter sets out who performs the rite, how the ashes are stored, and how the water for impurity is later applied to anyone who has touched a dead body, a bone, a grave, or a tent in which someone has died.

The Ordinance

The instruction comes to Moses and Aaron as a statute of the law: "Speak to the sons of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without spot, in which is no blemish, [and] on which never came a yoke" (Nu 19:2). The animal is unblemished and has never been worked. The heifer is given to Eleazar the priest, brought "forth outside the camp," and slain before his face (Nu 19:3). Eleazar takes some of her blood with his finger and sprinkles it "toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times" (Nu 19:4). Everything else is consumed: "And one will burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, he will burn" (Nu 19:5). Into the burning the priest casts cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet (Nu 19:6).

The Ashes and the Water for Impurity

After the burning, "a man who is clean will gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up outside the camp in a clean place; and it will be kept for the congregation of the sons of Israel for a water for impurity: it is a sin-offering" (Nu 19:9). The ashes are not consumed at the moment but stored. When the rite is later applied, "for the unclean they will take of the ashes of the burning of the sin-offering; and living water will be put thereto in a vessel" (Nu 19:17). The mixture is the recurring instrument of cleansing the chapter calls "water for impurity."

Who Becomes Unclean in the Rite

Everyone involved in producing the ashes contracts uncleanness, even though the rite produces purification for others. The priest who sprinkles the blood "will wash his clothes, and he will bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he will come into the camp, and the priest will be unclean until the evening" (Nu 19:7). The man who burns the heifer "will wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and will be unclean until the evening" (Nu 19:8). The one who gathers the ashes "will wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening" (Nu 19:10). The same pattern continues into the application: "he who sprinkles the water for impurity will wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity will be unclean until evening" (Nu 19:21). The statute is laid down "to the sons of Israel, and to the stranger who sojourns among them, for a statute forever" (Nu 19:10).

Corpse Defilement

The chapter then spells out the impurity the ashes are designed to address. "He who touches a dead [body] of any soul of man will be unclean seven days" (Nu 19:11). The same uncleanness reaches "whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of man, or a grave" (Nu 19:16). Death inside a dwelling spreads the impurity widely: "everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, will be unclean seven days. And every open vessel, which has no covering bound on it, is unclean" (Nu 19:14-15).

Application of the Water

The water for impurity must be applied on a fixed schedule: "the same will purify himself with it [the water] on the third day, and on the seventh day, and he will be clean" (Nu 19:12). A clean person carries out the sprinkling: "a clean person will take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and on all the vessels, and on the souls who were there, and on him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave: and the clean person will sprinkle on the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he will purify him; and he will wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and will be clean at evening" (Nu 19:18-19).

Refusal of the Rite

The penalty for refusal is severance from the people. "Whoever touches a dead [body] of the soul of the man who dies, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of Yahweh; and that soul will be cut off from Israel: because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he will be unclean; his uncleanness is yet on him" (Nu 19:13). The principle is restated: "But the man who will be unclean, and will not purify himself, that soul will be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of Yahweh: the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean" (Nu 19:20). The reach of the contamination is total: "whatever the unclean person touches will be unclean; and the soul who touches it will be unclean until evening" (Nu 19:22).