Numbers 19:1-6

1 ADONAI said to Moshe and Aharon,

2 "This is the regulation from the Torah which ADONAI has commanded. Tell the people of Isra'el to bring you a young red female cow without fault or defect and which has never borne a yoke.

3 You are to give it to El'azar the cohen; it is to be brought outside the camp and slaughtered in front of him.

4 El'azar the cohen is to take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle this blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times.

5 The heifer is to be burned to ashes before his eyes -its skin, meat, blood and dung is to be burned to ashes.

6 The cohen is to take cedar-wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them onto the heifer as it is burning up.

Numbers 19:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 19

This chapter contains a law for making a water for purification for sin, the ingredients of which are the ashes of a red heifer burnt, about which many things are observed, Nu 19:1-10; the use of the water made of them, to purify such as were unclean by the touch of a dead body, Nu 19:11-13; some rules are given, by which it might be known who were unclean on account of a dead body, Nu 19:14-16; the manner of purifying such persons, Nu 19:17-19; and the punishment of those that should neglect purification, Nu 19:20-22.