Bible Commentaries
Go deeper in Scripture
Browse trusted public-domain commentary alongside DiscipleDeck Bible study. References inside each commentary open Bible previews in place.
27,299 commentary entries
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:1-22
THE WATER OF PURIFICATION, AND ITS LESSONS The extreme difficulty of applying the details of this chapter to the spiritual truths of which they were a shadow forbids us attempting more than a general application of the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:1-22
DEFILEMENT FROM THE DEAD In the laws given to the Israelites there is much said concerning uncleanness. The ceremonial difference between the unclean and the clean sets forth the real difference between the sinful and t…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:2
This is the ordinance of the law. חֻקַּת הַתּוֹרָה. Law-statute: an unusual combination only found elsewhere in Numbers 31:21, which also concerns legal purifications. A red heifer. This offering was obviously intended,…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:3
Unto Eleazar the priest. Possibly in order that Aaron himself might not be associated with dearly, even in this indirect way (see Numbers 19:6). In after times, however, it was usually the high priest who officiated on…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:4
And Eleazar … shall … sprinkle of her blood directly before ( אֵל־נֹכַח פְּנֵי) the tabernacle. By this act the death of the heifer became a sacrificial offering. The sprinkling in the direction of the sanctuary intimat…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:5
One shall burn the heifer. See on Exodus 29:14. And her blood. In all other cases the blood was poured away beside the altar, because in the blood was the life, and the life was given to God in exchange for the life of…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:6
Cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. See on Le Numbers 14:4-6 for the significance of these things. The antiseptic and medicinal qualities of the cedar (Juniperus oxycedrus) and hyssop (probably Capparis spinosa) make t…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:7
The priest shall be unclean until the even, i.e; the priest who superintended the sacrifice, and dipped his finger in the blood. Every one of these details was devised in order to express the intensely infectious charac…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:9
For a water of separation, i.e; a water which should remedy the state of legal separation due to the defilement of death, just as in Numbers 8:1-26 the water of purification from sin is called the water of sin.
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:10
It shall be unto the children of Israel … a statute for ever. This may refer only to the former part of the verse, according to the analogy of Numbers 19:21, or it may refer to the whole ordinance of the red heifer.
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:11
Shall be unclean seven days. The fact of defilement by contact with the dead had been mentioned before (Le Numbers 21:1; Numbers 5:2; Numbers 6:6; Numbers 9:6), and had no doubt been recognized as a religious pollution…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:11
DEFILEMENT BY CONTACT WITH THE DEAD The law of Moses was a yoke which neither the fathers of the nation nor their descendants were able to bear. It would be difficult to name any part of the law in regard to which Peter…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:12
With it. בּו i.e; as the sense clearly demands, with the water of separation.
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:13
Defileth the tabernacle of the Lord. On the bearing of this remarkable announcement see Le Numbers 15:31. The uncleanness of death was not simply a personal matter, it involved, if not duly purged, the whole congregatio…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:14
This is the law. הַתּוֹרָה. By this law the extent of the infection is rigidly defined, as its duration by the last. In a tent. This fixes the date of the law as given in the wilderness, but it leaves in some uncertaint…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:15
Which hath no covering bound upon it. So the Septuagint ( ὅσα οὐχὶ δεσμὸν καταδέδεται ἐπ αὐτῷ), and this is the sense. In the Hebrew פָּתִיל, a string, stands in apposition to חָּמִיד, a covering. If the vesse…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:16
One that is slain with a sword. This would apply especially, it would seem, to the field of battle; but the law must certainly have been relaxed in the case of soldiers. Or a bone of a man, or a grave. Thus the defileme…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:17
Running water. Septuagint, ὕδωρ ζῶν (cf. Le Numbers 14:5; John 4:10).
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:18
Shall take hyssop. See Exodus 12:22, and cf. Psalms 51:7.
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:19
On the third day, and on the seventh day. The twice-repeated application of holy water marked the clinging nature of the pollution to be removed; so also the repetition of the threat in the following verse marked the he…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 19:21
It shall be a perpetual statute. This formula usually emphasizes something of solemn importance. In this case, as apparently above in Numbers 19:10, the regulations thus enforced might seem of trifling moment. But the w…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 21:1-3
EXPOSITION THE LAST MARCH: FROM MOUNT HOR TO JORDAN (CHAPTER 21-22:1). EPISODE OF THE KING OF ARAD (Numbers 21:1-3).
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 21:1
And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell. Rather, "And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, which dwelt in the Negeb, heard tell." It is possible that Arad was the name of the king (it occurs a…
The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 21:1-3
VICTORY WON, AND FOLLOWED UP In this brief narrative of three verses we have by anticipation almost the whole spiritual teaching of the Book of Joshua; we have, namely, the struggle and the victory of the soldier of Chr…