John Gill Commentary Numbers 19

And the Lord spoke to Moses, and to Aaron
Not at this time, after the business of the spies, and the affair of Korah, but before the children of Israel departed from Sinai; and so Aben Ezra observes, that this was spoken in the wilderness of Sinai, when the Lord commanded to put unclean persons out of the camp, and when some were defiled with a dead body, and unfit for the passover, (Numbers 5:2) (9:6) ; and mention is made of the "water of purifying", (Numbers 8:7) ;

saying ;
as follows.

This [is] the ordinance of the law which the Lord has
commanded

By which it appears, that this law was not of the moral, but of the ceremonial kind, being called an ordinance, a statute, a decree of God, the King of kings; and which was founded not on any clear plain reason in the thing itself, but in the will of God, who intended it as a type and shadow of the blood and sacrifice of Christ, and of the efficacy of that to cleanse from sin; and it also appears by this, that it was not a new law now made, but which had been made already: "which the Lord has commanded": as is plain from what has been observed, (See Gill on Numbers 19:1);

and the Jews ^F17 say, that the red heifer was slain by Eleazar the day after the tabernacle was erected, even on the second day of the first month of Israel's coming out of Egypt; and it was now repeated both on account of the priests and people, because of the priest to whom it belonged, as Aben Ezra observes, Aaron being now established in the priesthood;

and because of the people, who were afraid they should die if they came near the tabernacle; now hereby they are put in mind of a provision made for the purification of them, when under any uncleanness, which made them unfit for coming to it:

saying, speak unto the children of Israel ;

whom this law concerned, and for whose purification it was designed; and it was at the expense not of a private person, but of the whole congregation, that the water of purifying was made; and that, as the Jews say ^F18 , that the priests might have no personal profit from it:

that they bring thee a red heifer ;

or "young cow", for so the word properly signifies; one of two years old, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so says the Misnah ^F19 ; though some of the Rabbins say one of three years, or of four years, or even one of five years old, would do.

This instance, with others, where females are ordered to be slain, see (Leviticus 3:1) ; confutes the notion of such, who think the laws of Moses were made in conformity to the customs of the Egyptians, this being directly contrary to them;

if they were the same in the times of Moses, they were in the times of Herodotus, who expressly says ^F20 , male oxen the Egyptians sacrifice; but it is not lawful for them to sacrifice females, for they are sacred to Isis.

Indeed, according to Plutarch ^F21 and Diodorus Siculus ^F23 , the Egyptians in their times sacrificed red bullocks to Typhon, who they supposed was of the same colour, and to whom they had an aversion, accounting him the god of evil;

and because red oxen were odious to them, they offered them to him; as red-haired men also were slain by them for the same reason, at the tomb of Osiris, who they say was murdered by the red-haired Typhon;

but these were superstitions that obtained among them after the times of Moses, and could not be retorted to by him; a better reason is to be given why this heifer or cow was to be of a red colour:

without spot, wherein [is] no blemish ;

the first of these, without spot, the Jews understand of colour, that it should have no spots in it of any other colour, black or white, nor indeed so much as an hair, at least not two of another colour; and so the Targum of Jonathan, in which there is no spot or mark of a white hair;

and Jarchi more particularly,``which is perfect in redness; for if there were in it (he says) two black hairs, it was unfit;'' and so Ben Gersom, with which agrees the Misnah ^F24 ; if there were in it two hairs, black or white, in one part, it was rejected; if there was one in the head, and another in the tail, it was rejected; if there were two hairs in it, the root or bottom of which were black, and the head or top red, and so on the contrary; all depended on the sight:

and it must be owned, the same exactness was observed in the red oxen sacrificed by the Egyptians, as Plutarch relates ^F25 ; for if the ox had but one hair black or white, they reckoned it was not fit to be sacrificed; in which perhaps they imitated the Jews:

it being without blemish was what was common to all sacrifices, such as are described in (Leviticus 22:22–24) ;

[and] upon which never came yoke ;

and so among the Heathens in later times, very probably in imitation of this, they used to offer to their deities oxen that never had bore any yoke; as appears from Homer, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and Seneca, out of whom instances are produced by Bochart ^F26 .

Now, though this red cow was not properly a sacrifice for sin, yet it was analogous to one, and was a type of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all these characters meet, and are significant.

It being a female may denote the infirmities of Christ's human nature, to which it was subject, though sinless ones; he was encompassed with, and took on him, our infirmities; and may have some respect to the woman, by whom the transgression came, which brought impurity on all human nature, which made a purification for sin necessary;

and the red colour of it may point at the flesh and blood of Christ he partook of, and the sins of his people, which were laid upon him, and were as crimson and as scarlet, and the bloody sufferings he endured to make satisfaction for them;

and its being without spot and blemish may denote the perfection of Christ in his person, obedience, and sufferings, and the purity and holiness of his nature;

and having never had any yoke upon it may signify, that though he was made under the law, and had commands enjoined him by his father as man, yet was free from the yoke of human traditions, and from the servitude of sin, and most willingly engaged, and not by force and compulsion, in the business of our redemption and salvation.

FOOTNOTES:

• F17: Seder Olam Rabba, c. 7. p. 22.
• F18: Misn. Shekalim, c. 7. sect. 7. & Maimon, in ib.
• F19: Misn. Parah, c. 1. sect. 1.
• F20: Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 41.
• F21: De lside.
• F23: Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 79.
• F24: Parah, c. 2. sect. 5.
• F25: Ut supra. (Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 79.)
• F26: Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 33. vol. 322.

And you shall give her unto Eleazar the priest
The son of Aaron; the Sagan of the priests, as the Targum of Jonathan calls him, the second or deputy priest; it was not to be given to Aaron, that he might not be defiled, though but for a small time, that so he might not be hindered in his office at all; but to Eleazar, to inure him to his office, and to confirm him in it:

that he may bring her forth without the camp ;
without the camp of Israel; Jarchi says, without the three camps, as afterwards without Jerusalem; it used in later times to be burnt on the mount of Olives; it was brought forth as impure, and was a type of Christ, having the sins of his people on him, and who in conformity to this type suffered without the gates of Jerusalem, see (Hebrews 13:11–13) ;

and [one] shall slay her before his face ;
the Targum of Jonathan says, another priest; but it was not necessary that it should be slain by a priest, any man might do it. Jarchi says, a stranger slew, and Eleazar looked on; though it was not slain by him, yet it was slain before him, that it might look like a sacrifice, though not offered on the altar; and slaying of it denotes the putting of Christ to death, which was done in the presence, and with the approbation, of the priests and elders of the people.

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 ^F1; 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 ^F2: 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 ^F3; 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 ^F4, 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 ^F5, with which agrees the Misnah ^F6, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: Hilchot Parah Adumah, c. 3. sect. 2.
• F2: Vid. Misn. Parah, c. 3. sect. 7.
• F3: P. 81. No. 379.
• F4: Hilchot Beth Habechirah, c. 6. sect. 2.
• F5: In Misn, Middot, c. 2. sect. 4.
• F6: Misn. ib.

And [one] shall burn the heifer in his sight
Another priest, as the Targum of Jonathan, Eleazar looking on, as that expresses it; the Jews say ^F7 , that when the priest came to the mount of Olives, accompanied by the elders of Israel, before he burnt the cow, he dipped himself in a dipping place there; and the wood being laid there in order, wood of cedar, ash, fir, and fig trees, made in the form of a tower, with holes opened in it (to put in the fire, and that it might burn the quicker), and its aspect being to the west, he bound the cow, and laid her upon the pile, with her head to the south, and her face to the west; and then having slain it, and sprinkled its blood, as before related, he set fire to it by the help of some small wood.

The burning of it may signify the dolorous sufferings of Christ, when the wrath of God was poured forth like fire upon him; the same was signified by roasting the passover lamb:

her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn ;
which may denote the extent of Christ's sufferings, reaching to all parts of his body, skin, flesh, and blood, and the shame and reproach that attended them, signified by dung; as well as how impure and accursed he was accounted when he was made sin for his people, bore their sins and suffered for them, even not in body only, but in his soul also; for his soul as well as his body were made an offering for sin.

FOOTNOTES:

• F7: Misn. Parah, c. 3. sect. 7, 8, 9.