Numbers 19:18

18 In the first case, someone who is ritually clean is to take a sprig of hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, everything in it, and the people who were there. In the second case, someone who is ritually clean is to sprinkle the water on those who had touched the human bone or the dead body 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 If any touch a person who has been killed or has died a natural death outdoors or if any touch a human bone or a grave, they become unclean for seven days.
17 To remove the uncleanness, some ashes from the red cow which was burned to remove sin shall be taken and put in a pot, and fresh water added.
18 In the first case, someone who is ritually clean is to take a sprig of hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, everything in it, and the people who were there. In the second case, someone who is ritually clean is to sprinkle the water on those who had touched the human bone or the dead body or the grave.
19 On the third day and on the seventh the person who is ritually clean is to sprinkle the water on the unclean persons. On the seventh day he is to purify those, who, after washing their clothes and pouring water over themselves, become ritually clean at sunset.
20 Those who have become ritually unclean and do not purify themselves remain unclean, because the water for purification has not been thrown over them. They defile the Lord's Tent and will no longer be considered God's people.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.