Seder 117: Numbers 19---Dealing with Corpse Impurity

The subject matter of Numbers 19 is related to Lev 11-15, since the topic is the ritual impurity contracted through contact with dead bodies.  What role does this material play in the narrative of Numbers?   

Between Numbers 14 and Numbers 20, 38 years pass.  The text gives few specifics about what happened during that period.  One thing it does tell us is that the older generation of Israelites died during that period.  And each death resulted in ritual impurity for those who had contact with the body.

Numbers 19 gives instructions for dealing with corpse impurity.  A red cow would be sacrificed and its carcass burned up.  Some additional ingredients were added to the ashes---cedar wood, hyssop, scarlet yarn---perhaps to enhance the redness of the mixture, symbolizing blood.  

The ashes were a kind of purification offering in concentrated form.  Water containing the ashes was sprinkled on a person who had had contact with a corpse, along with any objects that had been rendered unclean through contact with the corpse.  

The instructions in Numbers 19 contain lots of fascinating details.  In Jewish tradition, these instructions are treated as a quintessential mystery, and their sometimes paradoxical nature is highlighted.  Still, the Tanakh says that there is value in meditating on these things (Ps 110:23). 

For example, those who handled the ashes and sprinkled the water contracted a minor ritual impurity. So how did the ashes that cleansed the impure cause a minor impurity for others who produced and handled them?

Commentator Roy Gane has suggested a rationale for this rule.  He is one of the modern scholars who has built conceptual models for how the rituals of Israel worked.  The ashes were going to absorb a lot of ritual impurity, and because of that potential, they were treated, even before they were used, as if that absorption of impurity had already occurred.  

This reminds us of the fact that sins throughout history have been forgiven through the death of Jesus, including sins committed before the Incarnation, because Jesus' death had as good as happened even before it occurred.  He was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8).  

One batch of ashes from a cow sacrificed at a particular time could be used to remove impurity over some long period of time after that.  This reminds us of the fact that through Jesus' death, sins committed long after the crucifixion have been forgiven.  

Despite the great potential of the ashes to remove impurity, water had to be added and the ashes sprinkled in order for purification to occur.  Similarly, for our sins to be forgiven, we have to accept the sacrifice that Jesus has made for us.  

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on September 17, 2022, Rob Wilson gave further discussion of the mysteries of Numbers 19.