Numbers 19:15

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹¹Whoever touches any dead body will be unclean for seven days. ¹²He must purify himself with the water on the third day and the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean. ¹³Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a person who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD. That person must be cut off from Israel. He remains unclean, because the water of purification has not been sprinkled on him, and his uncleanness is still on him. ¹⁴This is the law when a person dies in a tent: Everyone who enters the tent and everyone already in the tent will be unclean for seven days, ¹⁵and any open container without a lid fastened on it is unclean.¹⁶Anyone 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. ¹⁷For the purification of the unclean person, take some of the ashes of the burnt purification offering, put them in a jar, and pour fresh running water over them. ¹⁸Then 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, grave, or person who has died or been slain. ¹⁹The man who is clean is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and 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 he will be clean by evening. ²⁰But 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.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Numbers 31:20, Leviticus 11:32, Leviticus 14:36

Cross-References

Genesis 19:4
Before they had gone to bed, all the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house.

Genesis 19:5
They called out to Lot, saying, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have relations with them!"

Genesis 19:7
"Please, my brothers," he pleaded, "don't do such a wicked thing!

Genesis 19:8
Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them to you, and you can do to them whatever you want. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

Genesis 19:17
As soon as the men had brought them out, one of them said, "Run for your lives! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains, or you will be swept away!"

Genesis 19:22
Hurry! Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you reach it." That is why the town was called Zoar.

Genesis 19:24
Then the LORD rained down brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah-from the LORD out of the heavens.

Genesis 19:25
Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.

Genesis 19:27
Early the next morning, Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD.

2 Corinthians 6:2
For He says: "In the time of favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." Behold, now is the time of favor; now is the day of salvation!

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And every open vessel,.... An earthen one, as the Targum of Jonathan; and so Jarchi interprets it; and Maimonides r observes, that this is only to be understood of an earthen vessel:

which hath no covering bound upon it; a linen or a woollen cloth wrapped and tied about it:

[is] unclean; the air of the house getting into it by its being uncovered.

r In Misn. Cholin, c. 1. sect. 6.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

One practical effect of attaching defilement to a dead body, and to all that touched it, etc., would be to insure early burial, and to correct a practice not uncommon in the East, of leaving the deal to be devoured by the wild beasts.