The Ordinance of the Red Heifer
by Jerry King
via Biblical Insights, Vol. 15 No. 2, February 2015
Many of the ordinances contained in Moses’ Law make good scientific sense. For instance, some of the purity laws make good medical sense. But there are other ordinances contained in the Law that have no discernible scientific sense to them at all. Their efficacy rests solely in the fact that God commanded them for certain specified situations.
Such is the case with the ordinance of the red heifer in Numbers 19. Israel was instructed to select a red heifer without blemish or defect, and upon which a yoke had never been placed. Eleazar (the priest) was to take the heifer outside the camp and observe its slaughter. He was to sprinkle some of its blood seven times in front of the tabernacle. He was then to watch as the heifer was burned to ashes, along with cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet material. The ashes of the heifer were then to be gathered and stored in a clean place outside the camp.
This ordinance was given to Israel as a remedy for the ceremonial defilement resulting from contact with the dead. Some of the ashes of the red heifer were to be mixed with living (running) water and sprinkled with hyssop upon any person or thing (tent, vessel, etc.) that had even the slightest contact with a dead person. The person defiled by contact with the dead who did not receive this sprinkling with the “water of purification” was to be cut off from the assembly.
If there is anything scientific about all that, it totally escapes me. The purification under consideration is obviously ceremonial. In situations where a scientific explanation is missing, it seems logical to search for a spiritual application. What spiritual lesson was Israel to learn from all this? Commentators’ opinions vary.
Whatever else Israel might have learned from the ordinance of the red heifer, they were sure to understand from it what God thinks of sin and the death that results from sin. Israel would see much death as they wandered through the wilderness. In forty years, an entire generation would die as a result of their sin against God (Numbers 14:28-35). Despite their constant contact with it, Israel was not to see the death of their companions as a natural thing. They were to see every death as a consequence of man’s failure to obey God, as a pollution of what God had intended for them, and they were to understand that God hated it.
Those points resound in every verse of Numbers 19. Just the slightest contact with the dead brought defilement, as did even the slightest contact with anything having to do with the red heifer. Eleazer’s contact with the blood of the red heifer required washing and made him unclean until evening. The person who collected the heifer’s ashes had to wash and be unclean until evening, too. Even the person who sprinkled the water of purification had to wash and was considered unclean until evening. Any tent and its contents wherein a man died were unclean for seven days. Anything an unclean man touched was also unclean, and anyone who touched that unclean thing was also unclean until evening. Do you see the point? How horrific death was! Oh, how God loathed its presence among His people!
There is perhaps an even greater point about sin and death in Numbers 19 - the ultimate remedy for the defilement of sin and death would be the sacrifice of a very special life. What is the significance of an unblemished, never-yoked, red heifer? It is a picture of life at its fullest -female (the cradle of life), young (the vitality of life), not weakened by disease or by heavy work (the strength of life). The red heifer was the epitome of life. If the defilement of sin and death was to be overcome, that was the high price to be paid.
There is one clear reference to the ordinance of the red heifer in the New Testament, in Hebrews 9:13-14. There, the Hebrew writer makes the a fortiori argument, “For if... the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ... cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” The ordinance of the red heifer had messianic overtones. In Jesus is life (John 1:4; 5:24-26). He was the perfect, unblemished sacrifice (Hebrews 9:14). He was the price that had to be paid for our sin (I John 3:5). His death brought deliverance from the power and fear of our own death (Hebrews 2:14-15).
What power God placed in the ashes of that red heifer for ceremonial cleansing! But what incomparable power God has placed in the blood of His Son, offered “outside the camp” (Hebrews 13:12-13), for the greater cleansing of those who come to Him in faith-filled obedience!
