Numbers 19:18

18 Then a clean person shall take 1hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave.

Numbers 19:18 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 19:18

And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water,
&c.] Three stalks of hyssop bound together, as the Targum of Jonathan, and this man was to be a clean priest, according to the same; but it does not seem necessary that he should be a priest, but that anyone free from ceremonial pollution might do it:

and sprinkle it upon the tent;
where there was a dead body: but this, we are told, is to be understood not of a tent made of wood, or stone, or clay, but made of anything woven, as linen: or of skins F21:

and upon all the vessels;
in such a tent, that is, open ones, as before observed:

and upon the persons that were there:
when the man died in it, or came into it since, and while the dead body was in it;

and upon him that touched a bone;
of a dead man, or, as the Targum of Jonathan, the bone of a living man that is separated from him:

or one slain, or one dead;
slain with a sword, or dead of the pestilence, as the same Targum, or of any other disease, or in any other way:

or a grave;
or the covering or side of one, as the same Targum adds.


FOOTNOTES:

F21 Maimon. in Misn. Sabbat, c. 2. sect. 3.

Numbers 19:18 In-Context

16 Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
17 For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel.
18 Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave.
19 And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean.
20 "If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. Because the water for impurity has not been thrown on him, he is unclean.

Cross References 1

  • 1. See Exodus 12:22
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.