Numbers 19-20
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 19
Ashes of the Red Heifer. 1 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron: 2 This is the statute for the ritual which the Lord has commanded. Tell the Israelites to procure for you a red heifer without defect and free from every blemish and on which no yoke has ever been laid. 3 You will give it to Eleazar the priest, and it will be led outside the camp[a] and slaughtered in his presence. 4 Eleazar the priest will take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting.[b] 5 Then the heifer will be burned in his sight; it will be burned with its hide and flesh, its blood and dung; 6 and the priest will take cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire in which the heifer is being burned. 7 The priest shall then wash his garments and bathe his body in water, afterward he may enter the camp. The priest remains unclean until the evening. 8 Likewise, the one who burned the heifer shall wash his garments in water, bathe his body in water, and be unclean until evening. 9 Then somebody who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them in a clean place outside the camp. There they are to be kept to prepare purification water for the Israelite community. This is a purification offering. 10 The one who has gathered up the ashes of the heifer shall also wash his garments and be unclean until evening. This is a permanent statute, both for the Israelites and for the alien residing among them.
Use of the Ashes. 11 Those who touch the corpse of any human being will be unclean for seven days; 12 they shall purify themselves with the water on the third and on the seventh day, and then be clean. But if they fail to purify themselves on the third and on the seventh day, they will not become clean. 13 (A)Those who touch the corpse of a human being who dies and who fail to purify themselves defile the tabernacle of the Lord and these persons shall be cut off from Israel. Since the purification water has not been splashed over them, they remain unclean: their uncleanness is still on them.
14 This is the ritual: When someone dies in a tent, everyone who enters the tent, as well as everyone already in it, will be unclean for seven days; 15 and every open vessel with its lid unfastened will be unclean. 16 Moreover, everyone who in the open country touches a person who has been slain by the sword or who has died naturally, or who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days. 17 For anyone who is thus unclean, ashes shall be taken from the burnt purification offering, and spring water will be poured on them from a vessel.(B) 18 Then someone who is clean will take hyssop, dip it in this water, and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the vessels and persons that were in it, or on the one who touched the bone, the slain person or the other corpse, or the grave. 19 The clean will sprinkle the unclean on the third and on the seventh day, and thus purify them on the seventh day. Then they will wash their garments and bathe in water, and in the evening be clean. 20 [c]Those who become unclean and fail to purify themselves—those people will be cut off from the assembly, because they defile the sanctuary of the Lord. The purification water has not been splashed over them; they remain unclean. 21 This will be a permanent statute for you.
Those who sprinkle the purification water will wash their garments, and those who come in contact with the purification water will be unclean until evening. 22 Moreover, anything that the unclean person touches becomes unclean itself, and the one who touches such a person becomes unclean until evening.
Chapter 20[d]
Death of Miriam. 1 The Israelites, the whole community, arrived in the wilderness of Zin[e] in the first month, and the people stayed at Kadesh. It was here that Miriam died, and here that she was buried.
Need for Water at Kadesh. 2 Since the community had no water, they held an assembly against Moses and Aaron. 3 The people quarreled with Moses, exclaiming, “Would that we had perished when our kindred perished before the Lord! 4 Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? 5 Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, only to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place for grain nor figs nor vines nor pomegranates! And there is no water to drink!” 6 But Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting, where they fell prostrate.
Sin of Moses and Aaron. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to them, 7 and the Lord said to Moses: 8 Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and in their presence command the rock to yield its waters. Thereby you will bring forth water from the rock for them, and supply the community and their livestock with water. 9 So Moses took the staff from its place before the Lord, as he was ordered. 10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly in front of the rock, where he said to them,(C) “Just listen, you rebels! Are we to produce water for you out of this rock?” 11 (D)Then, raising his hand, Moses struck the rock twice[f] with his staff, and water came out in abundance, and the community and their livestock drank. 12 [g]But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Because you did not have confidence in me, to acknowledge my holiness before the Israelites, therefore you shall not lead this assembly into the land I have given them.
13 These are the waters of Meribah,(E) where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord, and through which he displayed his holiness.
Edom’s Refusal. 14 From Kadesh Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom: “Thus says your brother Israel:[h] You know of all the hardships that have befallen us, 15 how our ancestors went down to Egypt, and we stayed in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians treated us and our ancestors harshly. 16 When we cried to the Lord,(F) he heard our cry and sent an angel who led us out of Egypt. Now here we are at Kadesh, a town at the edge of your territory. 17 Please let us pass through your land. We will not cross any fields or vineyards, nor drink any well water, but we will go straight along the King’s Highway[i] without turning to the right or to the left, until we have passed through your territory.”
18 But Edom answered him, “You shall not pass through here; if you do, I will advance against you with the sword.” 19 The Israelites said to him, “We will go up along the highway. If we or our livestock drink any of your water, we will pay for it. It is nothing—just let us pass through on foot.” 20 But Edom replied, “You shall not pass through,”(G) and advanced against them with a large and heavily armed force. 21 Therefore, since Edom refused to let Israel pass through their territory, Israel turned away from them.
Death of Aaron. 22 (H)Setting out from Kadesh, the Israelites, the whole community, came to Mount Hor.[j] 23 There at Mount Hor, on the border of the land of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: 24 Let Aaron be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land I have given to the Israelites, because you both rebelled against my directions at the waters of Meribah. 25 Take Aaron and Eleazar his son and bring them up on Mount Hor.(I) 26 Then strip Aaron of his garments and put them on Eleazar, his son; but there Aaron shall be gathered up in death.
27 Moses did as the Lord commanded. When they had climbed Mount Hor in view of the whole community, 28 Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son. Then Aaron died there on top of the mountain.(J) When Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain, 29 all the community understood that Aaron had breathed his last; and for thirty days the whole house of Israel mourned Aaron.
Footnotes
- 19:3 Outside the camp: several early Christian writers saw in this a prefiguring of the sacrificial death of Jesus outside the walls of Jerusalem; cf. Jn 19:20; Hb 13:12; in the purifying water, into which the ashes of the red heifer were put, they saw a type of the water of Baptism.
- 19:4 Toward the front of the tent of meeting: since the tabernacle faced the east (Ex 26:15–30), the killing of the heifer would take place east of the camp; in later times it was done on the Mount of Olives, east of the Temple.
- 19:20 Ritual uncleanness is, as it were, contagious; so also sacredness; see note on 17:3.
- 20:1–29 In this chapter the deaths of the three wilderness leaders are either intimated or explicitly reported: Miriam, v. 1; Moses, v. 12; Aaron, vv. 12, 22–29.
- 20:1 The wilderness of Zin: a barren region with a few good oases, southwest of the Dead Sea. See note on 13:21. The first month: we would expect the mention also of the day and of the year (after the exodus) when this took place; cf. similar dates in 1:1; 10:11; 33:38; Dt 1:3. Here the full date is left unspecified. According to one chronology, the Israelites arrived in Kadesh in the third year after the exodus (cf. Dt 1:46). But the itinerary in chap. 33 would suggest the fortieth year, the year in which Aaron died (33:38).
- 20:11 Twice: perhaps because he did not have sufficient faith to work the wonder with the first blow. Cf. v. 12.
- 20:12–13 What lay behind Moses and Aaron’s lack of confidence is not made explicit in the text. Holiness: an allusion to the name of the place, Kadesh, which means “holy, sanctified, sacred.” Meribah means “contention.” Cf. Ex 17:7.
- 20:14 Your brother Israel: according to biblical tradition, the Edomites were descended from Esau, the brother of Jacob. Their country, to the southeast of the Dead Sea, was also known as Seir; cf. Gn 25:24–26; 36:1, 8–9.
- 20:17 The King’s Highway: an important highway, running north and south along the plateau east of the Dead Sea. In ancient times it was much used by caravans and armies; later it was improved by the Romans, and large stretches of it are still clearly recognizable.
- 20:22 Mount Hor: not definitively identified, but probably to be sought in the vicinity of Kadesh. According to Dt 10:6, Aaron died at Moserah (cf. “Moseroth” in Nm 33:30–31), which is apparently the name of the region in which Mount Hor is situated.
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