Numbers 19:4

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ²"This is the statute of the law that the LORD has commanded: Instruct the Israelites to bring you an unblemished red heifer that has no defect and has never been placed under a yoke. ³Give it to Eleazar the priest, and he will have it brought outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. ⁴Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting.⁵Then the heifer must be burned in his sight. Its hide, its flesh, and its blood are to be burned, along with its dung. ⁶The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool and throw them onto the burning heifer. ⁷Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; after that he may enter the camp, but he will be ceremonially unclean until evening. ⁸The one who burned the heifer must also wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he too will be unclean until evening. ⁹Then a man who is clean is to gather up the ashes of the heifer and store them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They must be kept by the congregation of Israel for preparing the water of purification; this is for purification from sin. ¹⁰The man who has gathered up the ashes of the heifer must also wash his clothes, and he will be unclean until evening. This is a permanent statute for the Israelites and for the foreigner residing among them.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

sprinkle: Leviticus 4:6, Leviticus 4:17, Leviticus 16:14, Leviticus 16:19, Hebrews 9:13, Hebrews 9:14, Hebrews 12:24, 1 Peter 1:2

Reciprocal: Leviticus 4:5 - General 2 Kings 5:10 - seven times

Cross-References

Genesis 13:13
But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD.

Genesis 18:20
Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous,

Genesis 19:1
The two angels entered Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them, bowed with his face to the ground,

Genesis 19:6
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him.

Genesis 19:20
Look, this town is near enough for me flee to it, and it is a small place. Please let me flee there-is it not a small place? Then my life will be saved."

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.

Exodus 16:2
And there in the desert they all grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

Exodus 23:2
You shall not follow a crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with a crowd.

Proverbs 4:16
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil, they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall,

Proverbs 6:18
a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that run swiftly to evil,

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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 Ainsworth thinks signified the Spirit of Christ, our high priest, called "the finger of God", Luke 11:20; who takes the blood of Christ, and sprinkles it on the hearts of his people, whereby they are freed from an evil conscience:

and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times; or "towards the tabernacle", so Noldius c; as sprinkling of the blood was the principal action in sacrifices, this was to be done directly before the tabernacle, from whence its purifying virtue was expected, though it was not shed in it, that it might have all the appearance of a sacrifice it could have; and being done seven times, denotes the perfection of it: the priest, when he sprinkled, stood on the east side, with his face to the west. When the temple was built at Jerusalem, this affair was transacted on the mount of Olives, which was east of Jerusalem. Jarchi says, the priest stood in the east of Jerusalem, and placed himself so that he might see the door of the temple at the time of sprinkling the blood. Now it appears, as Maimonides says d, that the floor of the temple was higher than the floor of the eastern gate of the mountain of the house twenty two cubits, and the height of the gate of the mountain of the house was twenty cubits; wherefore one that stood over against the eastern gate could not see the door of the temple, therefore they made the wall, which was over the top of this gate (the battlement of it), low, so that he (the priest), that stood on the mount of Olives, might see the door of the temple, at the time he sprinkled the blood of the cow over against the temple; otherwise he could only have seen the eighth step of the porch of the temple, as the same writer observes e, with which agrees the Misnah f, that all the walls there (about the mountain of the house) were high, except the eastern wall, that so the priest that burnt the cow might stand on the top of the mount of Olives, and look and behold the door of the temple, when he sprinkled the blood.

a Hilchot Parah Adumah, c. 3. sect. 2. b Vid. Misn. Parah, c. 3. sect. 7. c P. 81. No. 379. d Hilchot Beth Habechirah, c. 6. sect. 2. e In Misn, Middot, c. 2. sect. 4. f Misn. ib.