Numbers 19:18

18 Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, all the furnishings, and the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle the one who touched a bone, a grave, or a person who has died or been slain.

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 Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.
17 For the purification of the unclean person, take some of the ashes of the burnt sin offering, put them in a jar, and pour fresh water over them.
18 Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, all the furnishings, and the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle the one who touched a bone, a grave, or a person who has died or been slain.
19 The man who is ceremonially clean is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day. After he purifies the unclean person on the seventh day, the one being cleansed must wash his clothes and bathe in water, and that evening he will be clean.
20 But if a person who is unclean does not purify himself, he will be cut off from the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean.
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