Big Idea: God wants his people to associate with life and disassociate from death.

Understanding the Text

Numbers 19 describes a purification ritual initiated by Aaron’s son Eleazar, though carried out by laypeople, that involves the ashes of a red cow. This ritual is performed to purify persons ceremonially unclean because of a corpse. This ritual allows a corpse-contaminated layperson to be brought back to a state of purity and so restored to full participation in the religious life of the community.

This passage connects with what has come before in two ways. First, Numbers 19 continues the discussion of the role of priests found in Numbers 17–18. Second, Numbers 19’s ritual regarding corpse contamination relates to the earlier narratives involving death. Most immediately, there is t…