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[John]

I posted this in another thread, but I think it deserves it's own.


Quote:
The Red Heifer (Parah Adumah)


[Note: According to Jewish tradition, these instructions were initially given to Moses in the second year of the Exodus, on Nisan 1, the day the mishkan (tabernacle) was first erected, but appear at this point in the narrative because of the need to purify the people after Miriam's death.]

Moses is given the unusual ritual law (chukat hatorah) of the Red Heifer (parah adumah), whose ashes purify those contaminated by contact with death. This ritual is considered chok within the Jewish tradition, since it makes no rational sense. In fact, the Talmud states that of all the taryag mitzvot (613 commandments), this is the only one that King Solomon could not fathom, since this sacrifice is the most paradoxical of all the sacrifices found in the Torah. However, as we will see, the symbolism of the parah adumah is a clear foreshadowing of the sacrifice of the Mashiach Yeshua to deliver us from death.

The parah adumah had to be a perfect specimen that was completely red, “without blemish, in which there is no defect.” The rabbis interpreted “without blemish” as referring to the color, that is, without having so much as a single white or black hair. This is the only sacrifice in the Torah where the color of the animal is explicitly required. Moreover, the parah adumah was never to have had a yoke upon it, meaning that it must never have been used for any profane purposes.

Unlike all other sacrifices offered at the mizbeach (altar at the Mishkan), the parah adumah was taken outside the camp and there slaughtered before the priest, who then took some of its blood and sprinkled it seven times before the Mishkan (thereby designating it as a purification offering). [During the Second Temple period, the High Priest performed this ceremony facing the Temple while atop the Mount of Olives.] Then the red heifer would be burned in its entirety: its hide, flesh, blood, and even dung were to be burned (unlike other Levitical offerings). Unlike other offerings, all the blood of the sacrifice was to be burned in the fire.

Hyssop, scarlet yarn, and a cedar stick would then be thrown upon the burning parah adumah (interestingly, these same items were used to cleanse from sin or tzara’at (skin disease). In other words, the blood was assimilated into the ashes of the sacrifice, which were then gathered and mixed with water to create the “water of separation” (mei niddah) for the Israelite community. Note that the word “separation” (niddah) refers to menstrual impurity and harkens to Zechariah 13:1: “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and from niddah.”

Anyone (or anything) that came into contact with a corpse (the embodiment of sin and death) was required to be purified using the mei niddah. The purification procedure took seven days, using stalks of hyssop dipped into the water and shaken over the ritually defiled person on the third day and then again on the seventh day. After the second sprinkling, the person undergoing the purification process would be immersed in a mikvah and then be unclean until the following evening.


The Uniqueness of the Sacrifice

The Parah Adumah sacrifice was entirely unique, for the following reasons:

1. It was the only sacrifice that specifically required an animal of a particular color. This animal was extremely rare and unique of its kind (in fact, Maimonides wrote, "Nine Parot Adumot were prepared from the time the Commandment was given until the destruction of the Second Temple. Moses our Teacher prepared one, Ezra prepared one and seven more were prepared until the Destruction of the Temple. The tenth will prepared by the Mashiach." (We would say “was prepared” by the Mashiach Yeshua, blessed be He.)
2. It was the only sacrifice where all the rituals were carried out outside of the camp (and later, outside the Temple precincts). That is, the “blood applications” of this sacrifice occurred in a location apart from the altar (the Talmud recounts that the High Priest performed the blood applications of the Red Heifer while gazing at the Temple and at the Holy of Holies from a mountain opposite the Temple mount).
3. It was the only sacrifice that ritually contaminated the priest who offered it, but made the one who was sprinkled by it clean.
4. It was the only sacrifice where the ashes were preserved and used (other sacrifices required the ashes be disposed outside of the camp).


The LORD Yeshua, our Mashiach, is the perfect fulfillment of the Parah Adumah, since He was completely without sin or defect (2 Cor 5:21; John 8:46); He was sacrificed outside the camp (Heb 13:13); He made Himself sin for us (2 Cor 5:21); His sprinkling makes us clean (1 Pet 1:2; Heb 12:24; Rev 1:5); and the “water of separation” that His sacrifice created is the means by which we are made clean from the impurity of sin (Eph 5:25-6; Heb 10:22).


The Historical Narrative Resumes: Moses’ Sin

We now fast-forward 38 years later when the people of Israel arrived in the wilderness of Tzin. Moses’ sister Miriam died and was buried, and shortly thereafter the Israelites gathered together to complain to Moses and Aaron because of a lack of water.

Moses and Aaron went into the mishkan and prayed to the LORD. The LORD then instructed Moses to take his staff and to “speak” to the rock “to yield its water.”

“Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?"

It is thought by some commentators that this use of the pronoun “we” was the fateful error of Moses (not the striking of the rock with the staff). God’s judgment was that Moses did not trust Him enough to “sanctify” Him in the presence of all the people, by which it is suggested that Moses’ arrogance was impossible to overlook, since it was performed publicly. Moses and Aaron would therefore die in the wilderness, just as the first generation of Israelites who had failed to trust in the LORD did.

After this, the Israelites were refused passage by the King of Edom and then moved on to Mount Hor, where Aaron died and his son Eleazar was made High Priest.


The Copper Snake (Nechash Nechoshet)

From Mount Hor, the people grew impatient and another rebellion brewed. This time the people murmured not only against Moses, but against the LORD Himself. Consequently, the LORD sent “burning serpents” (haNechashim haseraphim) that bit the people and many Israelites died (the verb saraf means to burn). The people confessed their sin and appealed to Moses for help, who then interceded on their behalf.

The LORD instructed Moses to make a figure of a snake (Nechash Nechoshet) and mount it on a pole so that “everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”

The Mashiach Yeshua referred to this episode when He spoke to Nicodemus about the way of salvation. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). Humanity as a whole has been “bitten by the snake” and needs to be delivered from its venom. Just as the image made in the likeness of the destroying snake was lifted up for Israel’s healing, so the One made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3) was to be lifted up as the Healer of the world.



[Later, King Hezekiah destroyed the copper snake (called Nechustan in 2 Kings 18:4), since apparently it had been used for idolatrous purposes - a topic that could easily be developed into a derash about the worship of “crucifixes” or other man-made tokens that pertain to the sacrifice of Yeshua our LORD.]

The parashah concludes with details about the route through the Transjordan, including a song Israel sang about the gift of water at B’erah. After further journeying, Israel finally camped in the wastelands of Moab, poised to cross the Jordan and capture Jericho.



Haftarah Reading Snapshot:



The last section of Chukat (i.e., Numbers 21) related how the king of Bashan and the king of Ammon tried to prevent the Jewish people from passing through their borders to get to the promised land. Both kings decided to wage war against Israelites - and both kings lost. The Israelites then settled in their vanquished territories.

The Haftarah for Chukat fast forwards 300 years later, when the king of Ammon demanded that Israel return to him the territories that were conquered - and threatened war if the land was not given back. Yiftach ("Jephthah") was the (rejected) firstborn son of Gilead and a concubine, who had become renowned for his military prowess in the place of his exile (the land of Tov). The leaders of Gilead sought Yiftach’s help and asked him to deliver them from the threat of the Ammonites. Yiftach agreed on the condition that if he was successful, he would be restored as the firstborn of Gilead, and thus the tribal leader.

Yiftach then made a rash vow to the LORD, saying: "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD's, and I will offer up for a burnt offering."

After victoriously returning from his battle with the Ammonites, Yiftach was dismayed to see his own daughter come out of his house to meet him, since this meant that he would be forced to sacrifice her as a burnt offering as he had vowed to the LORD (some commentators believe that she was merely consigned to perpetual virginity, though this reading is unlikely.)

As Kohelet said, "Better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill" (Kohelet 5:4). The LORD Yeshua taught us, "Do not take an oath at all... (Matt 5:34-36). Let us take heed!



Brit Chadashah Snapshot:



The Brit Chadashah readings both show how Yeshua the Mashiach is the fulfillment of the “types and shadows” of the Torah (Hebrews 10:1-2).

In the reading from the book of Hebrews, Yeshua’s sacrifice is shown to be superior to the Parah Adumah sacrifice: “For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”


In the reading from John’s gospel, Yeshua explained to Nicodemus the way of salvation. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). Humanity as a whole has been “bitten by the snake” and needs to be delivered from its venom. We are all perishing with a fatal condition before the LORD.



But just as the image made in the likeness of the destroying snake was lifted up for Israel’s healing, so the One made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3) was to be lifted up as the Healer of the world. The LORD Yeshua became our “serpent” and represented God’s judgment upon our sinful condition. Paradoxically, by looking to Him as the One who bears our judgment before the LORD, we are delivered from the judgment that is rightly our own. We are forgiven and healed on account of the LORD Yeshua’s willingness to become the One who is “smitten of God and afflicted” (Isaiah 53). Praise God Almighty!