Numbers 19:11

11 He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days:

Numbers 19:11 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 19:11

He that toucheth the dead body of any man
A man and not a beast, as Aben Ezra observes; for he that touched the dead body of a beast was unclean only until evening, ( Leviticus 11:24 ) ; any man, Jew or Gentile, as the same writer notes: this is instanced in, as being the principal pollution, though not the only one, yet so some think, for which the water of purification made of the ashes of the burnt heifer was appointed:

shall be unclean seven days;
the reason of which is, because death is the fruit of sin, which is of a defiling nature, and to show that all that are dead in sins are defiled and defiling, and are not to be touched, or to have communion and fellowship held with them but to be abstained from.

Numbers 19:11 In-Context

9 A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up outside of the camp in a clean place; and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water for impurity: it is a sin-offering.

10 He who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: and it shall be to the children of Israel, and to the stranger who sojourns among them, for a statute forever.

11 He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days:

12 the same shall purify himself therewith on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he doesn't purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

13 Whoever touches a dead person, the body of a man who has died, and doesn't purifies himself, defiles the tent of Yahweh; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet on him.