“Pitch your tents outside the camp for seven days. Whoever has killed a person or touched the corpse of someone slain, purify yourselves on the third and seventh days, you and your captives. Also purify every garment, whether of skin or goat’s hair, and everything made of wood.”-Numbers 31:19-20
When the Hebrew army returned to the camp of Israel following the slaughter of the Midianites, verse 13 tells us they were greeted by Moses and Eleazar the High Priest.
However, understand that this wasn’t really about the two highest leaders of Israel going out to honor and congratulate the soldiers on their victory, as praise-worthy as that was.
No, rather it was more about keeping the camp of Israel from becoming defiled.
Here’s the thing.
All of the soldiers were now UNCLEAN.
At this point, I’m hoping the many hours we spent studying the Book of Leviticus will be put to good use
All of the soldiers had come into contact with death.
Even if a soldier or two hadn’t actually killed a person, there’s no doubt they would have touched a dead body.
I mean think about it.
After the battle, they would have been standing in the middle of a field littered with corpses (which by definition are UNCLEAN).
And not only that, the captured women and children would also have been UNCLEAN.
By definition, these folks would have automatically been UNCLEAN because we’re talking about a race of people that worshipped foreign gods.
Moses and the High Priest weren’t just going to let these UNCLEAN soldiers and their captives just waltz on into the camp of Israel.
They had to be purified first.
That’s what we’re being told about from verse 19.
We see the stand 7-day purification procedures being ordered according to the Levitical Laws.
The troops had to remain outside the camp where we’re told they were to “purify yourselves on the third and seventh days, you and your captives”.
Do you recall which God-ordained concoction was used to purify one from contact with death?
It was the mixture containing the ashes of the Red Heifer that was to be sprinkled on the contaminated soldiers and their captives.
In addition, all of their clothes had to be washed and any other physical objects they had touched also had to be ritually cleansed.
Let’s take a look at verses 22-23.
“Even though gold, silver, brass, iron, tin and lead can all withstand fire, so that you are indeed to purify everything made of these materials by having them pass through fire; nevertheless they must also be purified with the water for purification.”
Notice from the above listed of confiscated metals, there is zero mention of any earthenware vessels and pots.
There would have been thousands of these items but they’re not mentioned as needing to be purified.
Why not?
Again, recall our studies from Leviticus.
Because earthenware vessels are porous, they would have so thoroughly absorbed the contamination that it would have been impossible to cleanse them.
Such porous items were instead to be destroyed by fire.
The metal items were to be passed through the fire in order to purify them.
However, for those objects that would burn or could easily be melted (such as glass items), they were to be purified with water.
The Talmud provides an extensive code of exactly how these purification procedures were to be applied in daily life.
For example, any metal cooking vessel had to be heated until it was white-hot.
Metal forks, knives and spoons had to be scalded (immersed in burning hot liquid or steam).
And non-porous glass was to be soaked in cold water.
In fact, for Passover and the Feast of Matza, many Jewish households will follow the ritual cleansing process of dunking glass-made dining objects into cold water to this day.
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