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Numbers 19

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1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

2 This is the statute of the law which Jehovah has commanded, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel, that they fetch to thee a perfect red she·​·calf, wherein is no blemish, and upon which a yoke has not gone·​·up;

3 and you shall give her to Eleazar the priest, that he may bring· her ·forth to the outside of the camp, and he shall slaughter her before his face;

4 and Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and spatter of her blood opposite to the faces of the Tabernacle of the congregation seven times;

5 and he shall burn·​·up the she·​·calf before his eyes; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, upon her dung shall he burn· it ·up;

6 and the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet twice-dyed, and cast it into the midst of the burning·​·up of the she·​·calf.

7 Then the priest shall wash his garments, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and after this he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall·​·be·​·unclean until the evening.

8 And he who burns· her ·up shall wash his garments in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall·​·be·​·unclean until the evening.

9 And a man who is clean shall gather the ashes of the she·​·calf, and place them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be for the congregation of the sons of Israel for the keeping of the water of isolation; it is a purging.

10 And he who gathers the ashes of the she·​·calf shall wash his garments, and be·​·unclean until the evening; and it shall be to the sons of Israel, and to the sojourner who sojourns among them, for an eternal statute.

11 He who touches one dead, as·​·to any soul of man, shall be·​·unclean seven days.

12 He shall purge himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be·​·clean; but if he purge not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be·​·clean.

13 Whoever touches one dead, as to the soul of man who is dying, and purges not himself, makes·​·unclean the Habitation of Jehovah, and that soul shall be cut·​·off from Israel, for the water of isolation was not sprinkled upon him; he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.

14 This is the law concerning man when he 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 that has no covering* of stranded cloth upon it, it is unclean.

16 And anyone who touches one who is slain with a sword on the face of the field, or a dead body, or a bone of man, or a grave, shall be·​·unclean seven days.

17 And for someone unclean they shall take of the dust of what was burnt·​·up for purging, and on it living water shall be put into a vessel;

18 and a clean man shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and spatter it upon the Tabernacle, and upon all the vessels, and upon the souls who were there, and upon him who touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave;

19 and the one clean shall spatter on the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purge himself, and wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and shall be·​·clean at the evening.

20 And a man who shall·​·be·​·unclean, and shall not purge himself, even that soul shall be cut·​·off from the midst of the assembly, for the sanctuary of Jehovah he has made·​·unclean; the water of isolation has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

21 And it shall be an eternal statute to them that he who spatters the water of the isolation shall wash his garments; and he who touches the water of the isolation shall be·​·unclean until the evening.

22 And all that the unclean one touches shall be·​·unclean; and the soul who touches it shall be·​·unclean until the evening.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Arcana Coelestia # 7918

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7918. 'And you shall take a bunch of hyssop' means the outward means by which purification is effected. This is clear from the meaning of 'hyssop' as outward truth, the means by which purification is effected, dealt with below. It says that they were to take a bunch of hyssop because 'a bunch' is used to refer to truths and the arrangement of them, 5530, 5881, 7408. The reason why 'hyssop' means outward truth, the means of purification, is that all spiritual purification is effected by means of truths. For the earthly and worldly types of love from which a person has to be purified are not recognized except by means of truths. When these truths are instilled by the Lord a horror of those types of love, as of things unclean and damnable, is also at the same time instilled. The effect this horror has is that when something similar enters the person's thinking the feeling of horror returns, producing a loathing of those types of love. That is how a person is purified by truths, which serve as outward means. This was the reason why it was laid down that knives or 'small swords' made of flint should be used when circumcision took place, 'small swords' or knives made of flint being the truths of faith by means of which purification is effected, see 2799, 7044, and 'circumcision purification from filthy types of love, 2039, 2632, 3412, 3413, 4461, 7045.

[2] Since 'hyssop' had that meaning it was used in cleansings, which in the internal sense meant purifications from falsities and evils, as in the cleansing of leprosy in Moses,

The priest shall take for cleansing a leper two living clean birds, and cedarwood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and he shall dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird, and sprinkle over the one to be cleansed. Leviticus 14:4-7.

Hyssop was likewise used in the cleansing of the house, if leprosy was in it, Leviticus 14:49-51. The preparation of the water of separation by which cleansings were accomplished also involved the use of cedarwood and hyssop, Numbers 19:6, 18. 'Cedarwood' meant inward spiritual truth, whereas 'hyssop' meant outward [spiritual] truth. Thus 'cedarwood' is the means effecting purification more internally, 'hyssop' the means effecting it more externally. That 'hyssop' is a means of purification is plainly evident in David,

You will purge me with hyssop and I shall become clean; You will wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow. Psalms 51:7.

'Purging with hyssop and becoming clean' stands for external purification, 'washing and being made whiter than snow' for internal purification, 'snow' and 'whiteness' having reference to truth, 3301, 3993, 4007, 5319. 'Hyssop' means a very low kind of truth and 'cedar' a superior kind of truth, as is evident from the following words in the first Book of Kings, Solomon spoke about trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon even to the hyssop which comes out of the wall. 1 Kings 4:33.

Here 'the cedar' stands for the internal kind of truth and 'hyssop' for the external kind of truth that belong to intelligence.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.