Chukat חֻקַּת - Law
Numbers 19:1-22:1
Reading #1 -Numbers 19:1–17
My Thoughts:
The red heifer was sacrificed so that would have the ashes for those who touched a dead body and wanted to enter the Tabernacle. They were to cleanse for impurity. This is one of those requests from Hashem that we don’t really understand but we are to obey. In Israel today the Temple Institute has found a red heifer that meets Torah requirements, I believe. There are articles you can read to see if the ashes have been prepared. The point being, when the next Temple is built the red heifer ashes will have to be available to cleanse the priests before serving Hashem in the Temple. It is unknown how this will all come about, but have faith in Hashem that it will. Remember to daily pray for the Mashiach to return to the Temple in Jerusalem to rule and reign forever. Amen.
Challenge:
Touching a corpse makes you unclean. And Hashem does not permit people who are unclean to come into the Tabernacle -- into His presence. Doesn’t that make you ponder the holiness of Hashem? He represents LIFE and death can not come near Him. Without a Temple today we come before Hashem in prayer and worship -- and we too, must be clean. How is that possible? It seems like our only way is to repent and ask forgiveness of our sins. We must try to live the holy life and stay close to Hashem in our hearts. Do that today. Repent and ask Hashem to forgive you for all that you have done that disobeys Him and His Torah. Try to live in His light, and not in darkness. We must do our best without a Temple, without a red heifer, without His glory shining over the Tabernacle -- but continue seeking His glory that is within our hearts. Amen.
Reading #1 - Numbers 19:1-17
19:1 Hashem spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 “This is the statute of the law which Hashem has commanded. Tell the children of Israel to bring you a red heifer without spot, in which is no defect, and which was never yoked. 3 You shall give her to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring her outside of the camp, and one shall kill her before his face. 4 Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle her blood toward the front of the Tent of Meeting seven times. 5 One shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her meat, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn. 6 The priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the middle of the burning of the heifer. 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 evening. 8 He who burns her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the evening.
9 “A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up outside of the camp in a clean place; and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for use in water for cleansing impurity. It is a sin offering. 10 He who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. It shall be to the children of Israel, and to the stranger who lives as a foreigner 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 doesn’t purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean. 13 Whoever touches a dead person, the body of a man who has died, and doesn’t purify himself, defiles Hashem’s tabernacle; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is yet 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 seven days. 15 Every open vessel, which has no covering bound on it, is unclean.
16 “Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
17 “For the unclean, they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering; and running water shall be poured on them in a vessel.
