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and a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and on all the vessels, and on the persons who were there, and on him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave:

Verse Takeaways

1

A Law for Public Health

Commentators note the practical, sanitary benefit of this law. By making a corpse and everything near it ceremonially unclean, God encouraged the Israelites to practice prompt and distant burials. This stood in contrast to other cultures that kept mummified dead in their homes or buried them within city walls, thus promoting public health.

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Commentaries

4

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes

On Numbers 19:11–22

18th Century

Theologian

One practical effect of attaching defilement to a dead body, and to all that touched it, etc., would be to ensure early burial, and to correct a pr…

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon

On Numbers 19:17–22

19th Century

Preacher

This ordinance was partly sanitary. The Egyptians were accustomed to keep their dead in their houses, preserved as mummies. No Jew could do that, b…

John Gill

John Gill

On Numbers 19:18

17th Century

Pastor

And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water ,
&c.] Three stalks of hyssop bound together, as the T…

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Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry

On Numbers 19:11–22

17th Century

Minister

Why did the law make a corpse a defiling thing? Because death is the wages of sin, which entered the world through sin, and reigns by its power. Th…