Глава 19

Numbers 19:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Numbers 19:2. This is the statute of the law, which the Lord commanded, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, let them bring you a red heifer without blemish, who has no defect, [and] who has not had a yoke; A red heifer was used for a cleansing sacrifice, since the crimson color symbolizes the sinful impurity of a person. In the book. The prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 1.18) says: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow.” According to the assumption of the blessed Theodoret, the color of the sacrificial heifer could also indicate the material (red earth) from which the body of the first fallen man was created (Interpretation on the book of Numbers, issue 35). A female animal was assigned, probably because the female sex, as the giving birth sex, could most clearly express the idea of ​​spiritual rebirth from sinful death. “Without blemish, without defect”, according to the general rule for sacrificial animals. “On which there was no yoke” and which, therefore, before being sacrificed to the Lord, was not in the service of man. Numbers 19:3. and give her to Eleazar the priest, and he will bring her out of the camp [to a clean place], and they will kill her in his presence; Numbers 19:4. and let Eleazar the priest take her blood with his finger, and sprinkle the blood upon the front side of the tabernacle of meeting seven times; Numbers 19:5. And they shall burn the heifer before his eyes: her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her uncleanness, shall they burn; Numbers 19:6. and the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet thread and throw it on the heifer that is to be burned; Numbers 19:7. and the priest shall wash his clothes, and bathe his body in water, and then shall enter into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the evening. Numbers 19:8. And the one who burned it shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his body in water, and be unclean until the evening; Numbers 19:9. and let someone who is clean gather up the ashes of the heifer and place them outside the camp in a clean place, and they will be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel, for the water of atonement: this is an offering for sin; Numbers 19:10. and he that gathereth up the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and shall be unclean until the evening. This shall be for the children of Israel and for the strangers who sojourn among them for an everlasting statute. The sacrifice, contrary to the rules for other victims, was performed outside the camp. The sprinkling of sacrificial blood was carried out towards the doors of the tabernacle. The priest threw cedar wood, hyssop and a thread of scarlet wool onto the burning heifer. Following the instructions of St. Ap. Paul on the educational significance of the sacrifice of the red heifer (Heb. 9.13, 14, 13.11–13), the Church Fathers find out that the cedar tree was a sign of the Cross of the Lord; scarlet thread - Mistress of blood; hyssop - the life-giving and sanctifying power of the grace of Christ; “Sprinkle me with hyssop,” says Ps. 50:9, “and I will be clean; Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.” The slaughter of the heifer outside the camp foreshadowed the suffering of the Savior outside the walls of Jerusalem (Blessed Theodore, Commentary on the Book of Numbers, question 35; the same explanation is given by Blessed Augustine). The ashes of a burnt heifer, diluted with “living (spring) water,” were a means of removing legal uncleanness from a person, signifying the mystery of the New Testament baptism with water and spirit. The all-cleansing grace of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament Scripture is symbolically depicted under the image of “living water” (John 7:38–39). The high priest was exempt from sacrificing a red heifer for the sins of the people in order to avoid legal uncleanness (Num. 19:7), which was unacceptable in the high priest. Those obliged to participate in the sacrifice, as unclean until the evening, had to first perform a rite of purification and then join the camp. The corpse of a red heifer (like the corpse of a person) was considered unclean, desecrating those who touched it, both in general due to the close connection of death with sin, which gave birth to death (Gen. 3.19), and due to the special, special purpose of the red heifer, a symbol of burned sin. Numbers 19:11. Whoever touches the dead body of any person will be unclean for seven days: Numbers 19:12. he must cleanse himself with this [water] on the third day and on the seventh day, and he will be clean; if he does not cleanse himself on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean; Numbers 19:13. Anyone who touches the dead body of any deceased person and does not cleanse himself will defile the house of the Lord: that man will be cut off from among Israel, for he has not been sprinkled with cleansing water, he is unclean, his uncleanness is still on him. Numbers 19:14. This is the law: If a man dies in a tent, then whoever comes into the tent and everything in the tent will be unclean for seven days; Numbers 19:15. Every open vessel that is not bound and covered is unclean. Numbers 19:16. Anyone who touches someone killed with a sword, or a dead person, or a human bone, or a tomb in the field, will be unclean for seven days. Numbers 19:17. For the unclean, let them take the ashes of that burnt sin offering and pour living water on it into a vessel; Numbers 19:18. and let someone clean take hyssop, and dip it in water, and sprinkle it on the tent and all the vessels and the people that are in it, and whoever touches the [human] bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the tomb; Numbers 19:19. and the clean one shall sprinkle the unclean one on the third and seventh day, and shall cleanse him on the seventh day; and he will wash his clothes and wash [his body] with water, and by evening he will be clean. Numbers 19:20. If anyone is unclean and does not cleanse himself, that person will be cut off from among the people, for he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord; he has not been sprinkled with cleansing water, he is unclean. Numbers 19:21. And may this be an eternal statute for them. And let him who has sprinkled the cleansing water wash his clothes; and whoever touches the water of purification will be unclean until evening. Numbers 19:22. And everything that the unclean one touches will be unclean; and the person who touches it will be unclean until the evening. Cases of desecration are listed, for the removal of which the ashes of a red heifer diluted with living water were used. “Whoever touches the dead body of a person will be unclean for 7 days. If a person dies in a tent, then everything in the tent will be unclean for 7 days. Every open vessel (in this tent) is unclean.” In addition to the above-mentioned moral tendency (see example to Numbers 5.1–3), the instructions to protect oneself from contact with a human corpse and that which is in close contact with the latter also have enormous sanitary and preventive significance. “And he who sprinkles the cleansing water... and he who touches the cleansing water will be unclean until the evening,” as those who took part in cleansing from the filth of sin: a moral quarantine for the healer of moral ailments. You might be interested in: