The water of separation made of the ashes of a red heifer, 1-10. The law for the use of it in purification of the unclean, 11-22.
1 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 "This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel that they bring you a red heifer without spot, in which is no blemish and upon which never came a yoke. 3 And you shall give her to Eleazar the priest so that he may bring her forth outside the camp, and someone shall slay her before his face. 4 And Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger and sprinkle some of her blood directly before the Tabernacle of the Congregation seven times. 5 And someone shall burn the heifer in his sight—her skin, her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, he shall burn. 6 And the priest shall take cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer. 7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the evening. 8 And he who burns her shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his flesh in water and be unclean until the evening. 9 And a man who is clean shall gather the ashes of the heifer and lay them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation. It is a purification for sin. 10 And he who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. And it shall be to the children of Israel and to the stranger who sojourns among them for a statute forever.
11 'He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. 12 He shall purify himself with water on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he does not purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean. 13 Whoever touches the dead body of any man who is dead and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD, and that soul shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is yet upon him.
14 'This is the law when a man dies in a tent. All who come into the tent and all that is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. 15 And every open vessel which has no covering bound upon it is unclean. 16 And whoever touches someone who is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. 17 And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put to it in a vessel. 18 And a clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, upon all the vessels, upon the persons who were there, and upon him who touched a bone, someone slain, someone dead, or a grave. 19 And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. And on the seventh day he shall purify himself, wash his clothes, bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening.
20 'But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. The water of separation has not been sprinkled upon him. He is unclean. 21 And it shall be a perpetual statute to them, that he who sprinkles the water of separation shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water of separation shall be unclean until the evening. 22 And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and the soul who touches it shall be unclean until the evening.'"
Matthew Henry Commentary - Numbers, Chapter 19[➚]