Numbers 19–22

CHAPTER 19

Statute of the Red Heifer

¹Then Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,

²“This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel that they take to you a ^ared heifer without blemish, in which is no defect and ^bon which a yoke has never ¹been placed.

³‘And you shall give it to ^aEleazar the priest, and it shall ^bbe brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence.

⁴‘Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and ^asprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times.

⁵‘Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; ^aits hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned.

⁶‘And the priest shall take ^acedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the ¹burning heifer.

⁷‘The priest ^ashall then wash his clothes and bathe his ¹body in water and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening.

⁸‘The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his ¹body in water and shall be unclean until evening.

⁹‘Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and ¹the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as ^awater to remove impurity; it is ²purification from sin.

¹⁰‘And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer ^ashall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the sojourner who sojourns among them.

¹¹‘^aThe one who touches the corpse of any ¹person shall be unclean for seven days.

¹²‘That one shall ^apurify himself from uncleanness with ¹the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and then he will be clean; but if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean.

¹³‘^aAnyone who touches a corpse, the ¹body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, ^2bmakes the ³tabernacle of Yahweh unclean; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not ^4csplashed on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.

¹⁴‘This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.

¹⁵‘And every open vessel, which has no covering ¹tied down on it, shall be unclean.

¹⁶‘^aAlso, anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.

¹⁷‘Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ¹ashes of the ²burnt ^3apurification from sin and ⁴flowing water shall be ⁵added to them in a vessel.

¹⁸‘And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave.

¹⁹‘Then the clean person ^ashall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening.

²⁰‘But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly because he has ^1amade the sanctuary of Yahweh unclean; the water for impurity has not been ²splashed on him; he is unclean.

²¹‘So it shall be a perpetual statute for them. And he ^awho sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.

²²‘^aFurthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.’”

CHAPTER 20

No Water for the Congregation

¹Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the ^awilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there.

^2aNow there was no water for the congregation, ^band they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron.

^3aThe people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “^bIf only we had breathed our last ^cwhen our brothers breathed their last before Yahweh!

⁴“^aWhy then have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die ¹here?

⁵“And why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us into this evil place? ^aIt is not a place of ¹grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.”

⁶Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and ^afell on their faces. Then the glory of Yahweh appeared to them;

⁷and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

⁸“Take ^athe rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.”

Moses Strikes the Rock

⁹So Moses took the rod ^afrom before Yahweh, just as He had commanded him;

¹⁰and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “^aListen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?”

¹¹Then Moses raised high his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and ^awater came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.

¹²But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “^aBecause you did not believe Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

¹³Those were the waters of ^1aMeribah ²because the sons of Israel contended with Yahweh, and He proved Himself holy among them.

Edom Refuses Passage

¹⁴From Kadesh Moses then sent messengers to ^athe king of Edom: “Thus your brother Israel has said, ‘You ^bknow all the hardship that has befallen us,

¹⁵that our fathers went down to Egypt, and we stayed in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians treated us and our fathers badly.

¹⁶‘So ^awe cried out to Yahweh, and He heard our voice and sent ^ban angel and brought us out from Egypt; now behold, we are at Kadesh, a town on the edge of your territory.

¹⁷‘Please ^alet us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard; we will not even drink water from a well. We will go along the king’s highway; we will not turn to the right or to the left until we pass through your territory.’”

^18aEdom, however, said to him, “You shall not pass through ¹us, lest I come out to meet you with the sword.”

¹⁹Again, the sons of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway, and if I and ^amy livestock do drink any of your water, ^bthen I will ¹pay its price. Let me only pass through on my feet, ²nothing else.”

²⁰But he said, “^aYou shall not pass through.” And Edom came out to meet him with a heavy ¹force and with a strong hand.

^21aThus Edom refused to allow Israel to pass through his territory; ^bso Israel turned away from him.

²²Then they set out from ^aKadesh, and the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.

The Death of Aaron

²³And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron at ^aMount Hor by the border of the land of Edom, saying,

²⁴“Aaron will be ^agathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the sons of Israel because ^byou rebelled against My ¹command at the waters of Meribah.

²⁵“Take Aaron and his son ^aEleazar and bring them up to Mount Hor;

²⁶and strip Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar. So Aaron will be ^agathered to his people and will die there.”

²⁷So Moses did just as Yahweh had commanded, and they went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

²⁸And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and ^aput them on his son Eleazar, and ^bAaron died there on the mountain top. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

²⁹So all the congregation saw that Aaron breathed his last, and all the house of Israel wept for Aaron thirty ^adays.

CHAPTER 21

Destruction of Canaanite Cities

¹Then the Canaanite, the king of ^aArad, who lived in the ¹Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of ²Atharim, and he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

²So ^aIsrael made a vow to Yahweh and said, “If You will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.”

³Then Yahweh heard the voice of Israel and gave the Canaanites over; so they devoted them and their cities to destruction. Thus the name of the place was called ^1aHormah.

⁴Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way to the ¹Red Sea, to ^ago around the land of Edom; and the ²people became impatient on the way.

⁵And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “^aWhy have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no ¹food and no water, and ^2bwe loathe this miserable food.”

The Bronze Serpent

^6aSo Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people, and ^bthey bit the people so that ^cmany people of Israel died.

^7aThen the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you; ^bpray to Yahweh, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses prayed for the people.

⁸Then Yahweh said to Moses, “¹Make a ^afiery serpent and set it on a standard; and it will be that everyone who is bitten and looks at it, will live.”

⁹And Moses made a ^abronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it happened, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

^10aThen the sons of Israel set out and camped in Oboth.

¹¹They then set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness which is opposite Moab, east toward the sunrise.

^12aFrom there they set out and camped in ¹Wadi Zered.

¹³From there they set out and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the Amorites, ^afor the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

¹⁴Therefore it is said…