36 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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, Numbers 19:1; the use of the water made of them, to purify such as were unclean by the touch of a dead body, Numbers 19:11; some rules are given, by...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord spake unto Moses, and unto Aaron,.... Not at this time, after the business of the spies, and the affair of Korah, but before the children of Israel departed from Sinai; and so Aben Ezra observes, that this was spoken in the wilderness of Sinai, when the Lord commanded to put unclean persons out of the camp, and when some were defiled...
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary - Matthew Henry
This chapter is only concerning the preparing and using of the ashes which were to impregnate the water of purification. The people had complained of the strictness of the law, which forbade their near approach to the tabernacle, ch. xvii. 13. In answer to this complaint, they are here directed to purify themselves, so as that they might come as...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, — This ordinance was not given to Moses on Mount Sinai, but in the wilderness of Paran, after the people had broken their covenant with God, and were condemned to die. You know that the 90th Psalm — that dolorous dirge which we read at funerals, — called, “a prayer of Moses the man of God.”...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
This [is] the ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded,.... By which it appears, that this law was not of the moral, but of the ceremonial kind, being called an ordinance, a statute, a decree of God, the King of kings; and which was founded not on any clear plain reason in the thing itself, but in the will of God, who intended it as a...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke: and ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face: This...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest,.... The son of Aaron; the Sagan of the priests, as the Targum of Jonathan calls him, the second or deputy priest; it was not to be given to Aaron, that he might not be defiled, though but for a small time, that so he might not be hindered in his office at all; but to Eleazar, to inure him to his...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger,.... He took the blood in his left hand, and sprinkled it with the finger of his right hand, as Maimonides says (a); and so the Targum of Jonathan, which says, he did not receive it into a vessel, but into the palm of his hand, and from thence sprinkled it with his finger (b): which...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times: This makes it a sacrifice; otherwise, it scarcely deserves the name.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And [one] shall burn the heifer in his sight,.... Another priest, as the Targum of Jonathan, Eleazar looking on, as that expresses it; the Jews say (g), that when the priest came to the mount of Olives, accompanied by the elders of Israel, before he burnt the cow, he dipped himself in a dipping place there; and the wood being laid there in order,...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn: and the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer. All was to be burnt, and then the ashes, the essence and product of it, were to be preserved to make the water of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet,.... Another priest, according to the Targum of Jonathan; but it seems to design Eleazar the priest, and so, in later times, the same priest that burnt the cow took these things; the Jews say (h), when he took them he said, is this cedar wood? is this hyssop? is this scarlet? so he said...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then the priest shall wash his clothes,.... The Targum of Jonathan has it, "he that slew the cow,'' and Aben Ezra, the priest that burnt it; but it seems to mean Eleazar, the priest that sprinkled the blood, and by touching that was defiled and needed washing; and so the Jews (l) say, all that were employed about it, from the beginning to the end,...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even. What a strange sacrifice was this, for even when it was offered it seemed to make unclean all those who had anything to do with it!
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water,.... In forty seahs of water, as the Targum of Jonathan: this shows that one different from this is designed in Numbers 19:7; and that this is one distinct from him that sprinkled the blood, Numbers 19:4; and bathe his flesh in water: in a like quantity, as the above Targum: and shall be...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even. And a man that is clean- Now we come to the merit of Christ, for who is clean except Christ?
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And a man [that is] clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer,.... A man, a clean priest, as the Targum of Jonathan; in later times great care was taken that the priest concerned in the burning of the red cow should be pure; he was separated from his own house seven days before the time, and every day he was sprinkled with the blood of all sin...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin. This ceremonial does not represent the putting away of sin, that typified in the slaying of the victims; but it represents that...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes,.... Whom the Targum of Jonathan calls a priest, though it does not seem necessary he should be one: and be unclean until the even; [See comments on Numbers 19:7]; and it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them, for a statute for...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: and it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them, for a statute for ever. That was the remedy ordained by the Lord for purifying the defiled; now notice what made this remedy so necessary.