Sprinkling

Sprinkling is the priestly gesture by which a small quantity of fluid — blood from a sacrificial animal, or water mingled with ashes — is cast with the finger, with hyssop, or with a bunch of branches onto persons, garments, vessels, an altar, a tent, a house, or the mercy-seat. The act is reserved for moments of covenant ratification, atonement, the consecration of priests, the cleansing of a leper or a leprous house, the purifying of one who has touched a corpse, and the dedication of the tabernacle and its furniture. In the prophets and the apostolic writings the gesture is taken up as a figure for the inward cleansing Yahweh promises and which the blood of Jesus accomplishes.

The Passover Blood on the Door

The first sprinkling in the law uses neither finger nor altar but a bunch of hyssop dipped in a basin of blood and struck against the door-frame: "And you⁺ will take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side-posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you⁺ will go out of the door of his house until the morning" (Ex 12:22). The placement of the blood — "they will take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they will eat it" (Ex 12:7) — is a token Yahweh recognizes: "the blood will be to you⁺ for a token on the houses where you⁺ are: and when I see the blood, [by my Speech] I will pass over you⁺" (Ex 12:13). Hebrews remembers it as a single act of faith: "By faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the firstborn should not touch them" (Heb 11:28).

The Blood of the Covenant

At Sinai the gesture seals the covenant itself: "And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Here is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you⁺ concerning all these words" (Ex 24:8). Hebrews recalls the same scene with its full ritual apparatus — blood, water, scarlet wool, hyssop — and extends the sprinkling to the book and the vessels of the sanctuary: "For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people" (Heb 9:19); "Moreover the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry he sprinkled in like manner with the blood" (Heb 9:21). Zechariah looks back to that same blood when he announces release: "As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant I have set free your prisoners from the pit in which is no water" (Zec 9:11).

Blood Before the Veil and on the Mercy-Seat

In the sin-offering ritual the priest dips and casts blood toward the sanctuary itself: "and the priest will dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before Yahweh, before the veil of the sanctuary" (Le 4:6). On the day of atonement the same gesture reaches the mercy-seat: "and he will take of the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy-seat on the east; and before the mercy-seat he will sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times" (Le 16:14). The horns of the altar receive blood once a year: "And Aaron will make atonement on the horns of it once in the year; with the blood of the sin-offering of atonement once in the year he will make atonement for it throughout your⁺ generations: it is most holy to Yahweh" (Ex 30:10). Hebrews traces the same yearly motion: "but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself, and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance" (Heb 9:7). The principle behind the gesture is stated plainly: "For the soul of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you⁺ on the altar to make atonement for your⁺ souls: for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the soul" (Le 17:11), and again, "according to the law, I may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb 9:22).

Blood Applied to Priests and to the Cleansed Leper

In the consecration of the priesthood the sprinkled blood becomes pointed: it is laid on the body and then thrown around the altar. "Then you will kill the ram, and take of its blood, and put it on the tip of Aaron's and his sons' right ear, and on the thumb of their right hand, and on the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood on the altar round about" (Ex 29:20); "And he slew it; and Moses took of its blood, and put it on the tip of Aaron's right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot" (Le 8:23).

The leper restored to community is consecrated by the same threefold placement: "and the priest will take of the blood of the trespass-offering, and the priest will put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot" (Le 14:14); "And he will kill the lamb of the trespass-offering; and the priest will take of the blood of the trespass-offering, and put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot" (Le 14:25). Earlier in the same ritual the cleansing reaches the leper himself by hyssop: "As for the living bird, he will take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and will dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water" (Le 14:6); "And he will sprinkle on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and will pronounce him clean, and will let the living bird go into the open field" (Le 14:7).

Sprinkling a Leprous House

The same gesture cleanses a building. The cedar, hyssop, scarlet, and living bird are dipped, and the house — like a person — receives the blood seven times: "and he will take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times" (Le 14:51).

Water and Ashes for Defilement

A second sprinkling uses water rather than blood, and is provided for defilement of a different order. The Levites are set apart by it: "And thus you will do to them, to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of expiation on them, and let them cause a razor to pass over all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes, and cleanse themselves" (Nu 8:7). The red heifer ordinance places the blood toward the tent and reserves the ashes for the water of separation: "and Eleazar the priest will take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times" (Nu 19:4); "and the priest will take cedar-wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer" (Nu 19:6). Hebrews names this rite when it argues from the lesser to the greater: "For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh" (Heb 9:13). Numbers also requires that captured goods touched by the dead be sprinkled: "And as to every garment, and all that is made of skin, and all work of goats' [hair], and all things made of wood, you⁺ will purify yourselves" (Nu 31:20). Approach to a Passover required the same kind of preparation: "Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand: and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover, to purify themselves" (Jn 11:55).

The Inward Sprinkling Promised

The prophets reach for the same word to describe what Yahweh will do inside his people: "And I will sprinkle clean water on you⁺, and you⁺ will be clean: from all your⁺ filthiness, and from all your⁺ idols, I will cleanse you⁺" (Eze 36:25). David asks the same in the language of the law: "Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean: Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow" (Ps 51:7).

The Blood of Sprinkling in the New Covenant

The apostolic writings take up the gesture as a description of what the blood of Jesus does. Believers are addressed as those chosen "in sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1Pe 1:2). They have come, Hebrews says, "to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than [that of] Abel" (Heb 12:24). On that ground the worshipper is summoned forward: "let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed in pure water" (Heb 10:22). The gesture that began at the door-posts of Egypt and moved through veil, mercy-seat, altar, priest, leper, house, and tent, becomes in the new covenant the address of a sprinkled blood to the conscience itself.

A Verbal Echo at the Cross

A small detail of the passion narrative carries the same word as a sign rather than a rite: "There was set there a vessel full of vinegar: so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop, and brought it to his mouth" (Jn 19:29). The hyssop that once carried sacrificial blood to the door, the leper, and the house here carries the sour drink to the lips of the one whose own blood Hebrews names "the blood of sprinkling."