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Ceremony of the Red Heifer19 The L ord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 2This is a statute of the law that the L ord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish and on which no yoke has been laid. 3You shall give it to the priest Eleazar, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. 4The priest Eleazar shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times towards the front of the tent of meeting. 5Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. 6The priest shall take cedarwood, hyssop, and crimson material, and throw them into the fire in which the heifer is burning. 7Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterwards he may come into the camp; but the priest shall remain unclean until evening. 8The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water; he shall remain unclean until evening. 9Then someone who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place; and they shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites for the water for cleansing. It is a purification offering. 10The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. This shall be a perpetual statute for the Israelites and for the alien residing among them. 11Those who touch the dead body of any human being shall be unclean seven days. 12They shall purify themselves with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean; but if they do not purify themselves on the third day and on the seventh day, they will not become clean. 13All who touch a corpse, the body of a human being who has died, and do not purify themselves, defile the tabernacle of the L ord; such persons shall be cut off from Israel. Since water for cleansing was not dashed on them, they remain unclean; their uncleanness is still on them. 14 This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days. 15And every open vessel with no cover fastened on it is unclean. 16Whoever in the open field touches one who has been killed by a sword, or who has died naturally, or a human bone, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. 17For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt purification offering, and running water shall be added in a vessel; 18then a clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the furnishings, on the persons who were there, and on whoever touched the bone, the slain, the corpse, or the grave. 19The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean ones on the third day and on the seventh day, thus purifying them on the seventh day. Then they shall wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water, and at evening they shall be clean. 20Any who are unclean but do not purify themselves, those persons shall be cut off from the assembly, for they have defiled the sanctuary of the L ord. Since the water for cleansing has not been dashed on them, they are unclean. 21 It shall be a perpetual statute for them. The one who sprinkles the water for cleansing shall wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water for cleansing shall be unclean until evening. 22Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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13. Whosoever toucheth the dead body. The severity of. the capital punishment shews how very pleasing to God is purity. If any one bad forgotten to sprinkle himself on the third or the seventh day, he might redeem his negligence by a prolongation of the term, because he only postponed his purification to another day; but it was a capital crime to enter the sanctuary in his uncleanness, since thus holy and profane things would be mixed together, nay, the altar would have been polluted as well as the whole service of God. But indeed the act of touching a dead body was of slight importance, nor was it to be deemed an atrocious crime; but here the external defilement is not regarded in itself, as if God were wroth on account of a stain contracted by the performance of a pious duty. 2525 “Pour ensevelir son pere;” by burying his father — Fr. Rather must the object of the ceremony be considered, for God designed by these rudiments to teach the Israelites, like children, that if any one should pollute sacred things by his impurity, he would by no means be tolerated in this audacity. In this then consisted the religious import of the transaction, that the worship of God was too precious for the Israelites to be permitted to contaminate it with impunity. Whence we gather that the punishment was denounced as against sacrilege. In sum, it comes to this, that God is not duly worshipped except with a sincere heart and pure hands; and that if any pollution be contracted, there is need of expiation before a free access is re-opened to holy things. But it must be remarked as to the contact, that it was accounted the same thing, whether the corpse lay in a field or a house; whilst, if any one died in a tent, men were polluted by merely entering it, and likewise vessels without covers thus became unclean. |