Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 19:7

Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even.

Partly to teach us the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, in which the priest himself was defiled by some parts of his work, and the absolute necessity of a better and holier priesthood; and partly to show that Christ himself, though he had no sin of his own, yet was reputed by men, and judged by God, as an unclean and sinful person, by reason of our sins which were laid upon him, Isa 53:12; 2Co 5:21.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

7. the priest shall be unclean untilthe evenThe ceremonies prescribed show the imperfection of theLevitical priesthood, while they typify the condition of Christ whenexpiating our sins (2Co 5:21).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Then the priest shall wash his clothes,…. The Targum of Jonathan has it,

“he that slew the cow,”

and Aben Ezra, the priest that burnt it; but it seems to mean Eleazar, the priest that sprinkled the blood, and by touching that was defiled and needed washing; and so the Jews l say, all that were employed about it, from the beginning to the end, were defiled in their garments; not only he that slew it, and burnt it, and sprinkled its blood, but he that took and cast in the cedar wood, c. as we find also he that gathered the ashes of it as well as burnt it: this creature was reckoned so impure, though its ashes were for purifying, that whoever had anything to do with it was unclean, as the scapegoat, which had the sins of all Israel on it and this as that was typical of Christ, made sin for his people, that he might cleanse them from sin: it may point at the sin of the priests and people of Israel, in putting Christ to death, and yet there was cleansing from that sin, in the precious blood of Christ, as well as from all others:

and he shall bathe his flesh in water; in forty seahs of water, as the Targum of Jonathan; not his clothes only, but his body was to be dipped in water:

and afterward he shall come into the camp: when his clothes and flesh are washed, but not before:

and the priest shall be unclean until the even; though washed, and therefore, though he is said to go into the camp upon washing, this is to be understood, after the evening is come: so Jarchi directs to interpret the passage, transpose it, says he, and so explain it; and he shall be unclean until the evening, and after that he may come into the camp, not only the camp of Israel, but the camp of the Shechinah, as the same writer.

l Misn. Parah, c. 4. sect. 4.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes. At first sight there seems to be a discrepancy in the facts, that the heifer was sacred to God, and pure, and still that the priest was polluted by touching it; yet they accord very well with each other. But that both the priest as well as the minister who made the burning, were unclean until the evening, ought to have forcibly struck the people, and taught them the more to abominate sin. And, since it was not permitted to any but a man that was clean to gather the ashes, not that they should be laid anywhere but in a clean place, it was manifested by this sign that there was no impurity in the sacrifice itself, but that from an extraneous and adventitious pollution; because it was destined to purge away uncleanness, it was accounted in a certain sense unclean. Whence too the water, into which the ashes were thrown, was called the water of separation, as well as the expiation (23) For this translation which I have given is the right one; and others improperly render it “for waters of separation, and for expiation.” The old interpreter has not given the sense amiss, as far as regards this word, “ because the heifer is burnt for sin.” But since in Hebrew the word, חטאה chateah (24) means not only wickedness or sin, but also the sacrifice on which the curse is imposed; what Moses intended to convey is better expressed by the word “ expiation. ” But the expression “separation” has reference to the men, whose personal uncleanness excluded them from the holy congregation. But the question arises, why this ordinance is pronounced to be common to the strangers who sojourned in the land of Israel, as well as to the natives; because it was by no means reasonable that the uncircumcised should be purified. The reply is easy, that such strangers are not adverted to as were altogether aliens from the people, but those who, although born of heathen parentage, had embraced the Law. These God equalizes with the children of Abraham in the sacrifices and other religious services; for if their condition were different, the-church, into the body of which they were ingrafted, would be rent asunder.

(23) “ Nam expiatio est.” — Lat, v. 9. “It is a purification for sin.” — A.V.

(24) למי נדה חטאת הוא ́̔Υδωρ ῥαντισμᾶ ἅγνισμά ἐστι· — LXX. In aqua aspersionis; quia pro peccato vacca combusta est. — V. This last is what C. means by “the old interpreter.” The translation which he condemns he had seen in S.M. — W.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(7) Then the priest . . . The Targum of Jonathan refers these words to the priest who killed the heifer, and Ibn Ezra to the priest who burnt it; but the reference is more probably, as in the preceding verse, to Eleazar.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

7. Wash his clothes, and flesh “This washing of the garments and the body what is it but the cleansing of our faculties, external and internal.” Augustine.

Unclean until the even The only necessary contact of the priest with the heifer was in the sprinkling of the blood. The heifer, like all sin offerings, may be regarded as unclean, for the reason that the sins of men were imputed to the sin sacrifice, as the sins of the world were putatively laid upon Christ. “It is evident from the whole that there was no natural or necessary connexion between the sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer upon a person and cleansing him from sin. It was simply the divine appointment that gave efficacy to the act.” Bush.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments