Numbers 19:7

Num 19:7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even.

Ver. 7. The priest shall wash his clothes.] To show the contagion and pollution of sin, {2Co 7:1} and imperfection of the legal priesthood.

Unclean until the evening.] So Num 19:8; Num 19:10. We had need take time till the evening, to humble our souls, and bewail our unworthiness of the blood of Christ.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Num 19:7. The priest shall be unclean — Partly to teach us the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, in which the priest himself was defiled by some parts of his work, and partly to show that Christ himself, though he had no sin of his own, yet was reputed by men, and judged by God, as a sinful person, by reason of our sins, which were laid upon him.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19:7-10 Three people were needed to produce and collect the heifer’s ashes—Eleazar, the man who burned the animal, and the man who gathered its ashes. All three became ritually impure for a day because of this process. This was also true for the person who used the finished product, a potion made from the ash dust and water (cp. 19:21) that had the same defiling effect as blood associated with sacrifices (Lev 6:27-28).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Meaning, Eleazar.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

the priest shall be unclean until the even--The ceremonies prescribed show the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, while they typify the condition of Christ when expiating our sins (Co2 5:21).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(7) Then the priest . . . —The Targum of Jonathan refers these words to the priest who killed the heifer, and Ibn Ezra to the priest who burnt it; but the reference is more probably, as in the preceding verse, to Eleazar.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then the priest shall wash his clothes,.... The Targum of Jonathan has it,"he that slew the cow,''and Aben Ezra, the priest that burnt it; but it seems to mean Eleazar, the priest that sprinkled the blood, and by touching that was defiled and needed washing; and so the Jews (l) say, all that were employed about it, from the beginning to the end, were defiled in their garments; not only he that slew it, and burnt it, and sprinkled its blood, but he that took and cast in the cedar wood, &c. as we find also he that gathered the ashes of it as well as burnt it: this creature was reckoned so impure, though its ashes were for purifying, that whoever had anything to do with it was unclean, as the scapegoat, which had the sins of all Israel on it; and this as that was typical of Christ, made sin for his people, that he might cleanse them from sin: it may point at the sin of the priests and people of Israel, in putting Christ to death, and yet there was cleansing from that sin, in the precious blood of Christ, as well as from all others:

and he shall bathe his flesh in water; in forty seahs of water, as the Targum of Jonathan; not his clothes only, but his body was to be dipped in water:

and afterward he shall come into the camp: when his clothes and flesh are washed, but not before:

and the priest shall be unclean until the even; though washed, and therefore, though he is said to go into the camp upon washing, this is to be understood, after the evening is come: so Jarchi directs to interpret the passage, transpose it, says he, and so explain it; and he shall be unclean until the evening, and after that he may come into the camp, not only the camp of Israel, but the camp of the Shechinah, as the same writer.

(l) Misn. Parah, c. 4. sect. 4.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Partly to teach us the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, in which the priest himself was defiled by some parts of his work, and the absolute necessity of a better and holier priesthood; and partly to show that Christ himself, though he had no sin of his own, yet was reputed by men, and judged by God, as an unclean and sinful person, by reason of our sins which were laid upon him, Isa 53:12; 2Co 5:21.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Wash his clothes, and… flesh — “This washing of the garments and the body — what is it but the cleansing of our faculties, external and internal.” — Augustine.

Unclean until the even — The only necessary contact of the priest with the heifer was in the sprinkling of the blood. The heifer, like all sin offerings, may be regarded as unclean, for the reason that the sins of men were imputed to the sin sacrifice, as the sins of the world were putatively laid upon Christ. “It is evident from the whole that there was no natural or necessary connexion between the sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer upon a person and cleansing him from sin. It was simply the divine appointment that gave efficacy to the act.” — Bush.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 character of death in its moral aspect. The very ashes, which were so widely potent for cleansing (verse 10), and the cleansing water itself (verse 19), made every one that touched them, even for the purifying of another, himself unclean. At the same time the ashes, while, as it were, so redolent of death that they must be kept outside the camp, were most holy, and were to be laid up by a clean man in a clean place (verse 9). These contradictions find their true explanation only when we consider them as foreshadowing the mysteries of the atonement.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Shall be unclean - Partly to teach us the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, in which the priest himself was defiled by some parts of his work, and partly to shew that Christ himself, though he had no sin of his own, yet was reputed by men, and judged by God, as a sinful person, by reason of our sins which were laid upon him.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Then he must wash his clothes

Here "he" refers to Eleazar the priest.

he will remain unclean

Being unacceptable to God or unfit to do any sacred work is spoken of as not being clean. (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

clean

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

אל המחנה [AND AFTERWARDS HE MAY COME] INTO THE CAMP — into the camp of the Shechina (in the case of the Temple at Jerusalem, into the forecourt, the עזרה, immediately in front of the Temple), from which alone he had been barred, for no unclean person was expelled from two camps (i.e. from more than one, viz., the מחנה שכינה) except a person with a running issue and a man who had experienced a seminal emission (who were expelled from the מחנה שכינה and מחנה לויה), and a leper (who had to remain outside all three) (cf. Pesachim 67a).

וטמא הכהן עד הערב [AND AFTERWARDS HE SHALL COME INTO THE CAMP] AND THE PRIEST SHALL BE UNCLEAN UNTO THE EVENING — Invert its order (that of the phrases forming this half of the verse), and then explain it: He shall be unclean until the evening and afterwards he shall come into the camp (cf Rashi Leviticus 11:32 and Note thereon).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.