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Barnabas

Epistle of Barnabas

About this book

Interpreting the Red Heifer Ritual

Chapter 8

1 What do you think the type implies when the command is given to Israel that those people whose sins are mature should offer a heifer, slaughter it, and burn it, and then the children collect the ashes, put them into vessels,⁠ and twist the scarlet wool on a tree—here again is the type of the cross and the scarlet wool—and the hyssop, and once that is done, the children sprinkle the people one by one so that they may be purified from their sins? 2 Understand how plainly this is said to you: the calf is Jesus; the men who offer it, being sinners, are those who offered Him for slaughter. From then on it is no longer men who offer, and the glory is no longer for sinners. 3 The children who sprinkle are those who preached to us the forgiveness of sins and the purification of our heart—they, being twelve in number for a testimony to the tribes (for there are twelve tribes of Israel)—to whom He gave authority over the Gospel, that they might preach it. 4 But why are the children who sprinkle three in number? For a testimony to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because these are great before God. 5 Then there is the placing of the wool on the tree. This means that the kingdom of Jesus is on the cross, and that those who set their hope on Him will live forever. 6 And why do we see wool and hyssop at the same time? Because in His kingdom there will be painful and foul days in which we will be saved; for the one who suffers in the flesh is healed by the bitterness of the hyssop. 7 For us it is clear these things happened for this reason, but for them it was obscure because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Numbers 19:9 and Barnabas 8:1

Hebrew Bible · Early Christian

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Summary

Numbers 19 has a ceremonially clean man gather the ashes of the red heifer and keep them for the water of purification. The epistle of Barnabas retells this with children collecting the ashes, a detail absent from Numbers but found in Rabbinic tradition.

Passages

Numbers 19:9

Hebrew Bible
2 “This is the ordinance of the law that the Lord has commanded: ‘Instruct the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without blemish, which has no defect and has never carried a yoke. 3 You must give it to Eleazar the priest so that he can take it outside the camp, and it must be slaughtered before him. 4 Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of the blood seven times in the direction of the front of the tent of meeting. 5 Then the heifer must be burned in his sight—its skin, its flesh, its blood, and its offal is to be burned. 6 And the priest must take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool and throw them into the midst of the fire where the heifer is burning. 7 Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and afterward he may come into the camp, but the priest will be ceremonially unclean until evening. 8 The one who burns it must wash his clothes in water and bathe himself in water. He will be ceremonially unclean until evening. 9 “‘Then a man who is ceremonially clean must gather up the ashes of the red heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They must be kept for the community of the Israelites for use in the water of purification—it is a purification for sin. 10 The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer must wash his clothes and be ceremonially unclean until evening. This will be a permanent ordinance both for the Israelites and the resident foreigner who lives among them.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Numbers

Barnabas 8:1

Early Christian · Epistle of Barnabas
1 What do you think the type implies when the command is given to Israel that those people whose sins are mature should offer a heifer, slaughter it, and burn it, and then the children collect the ashes, put them into vessels, and twist the scarlet wool on a tree—here again is the type of the cross and the scarlet wool—and the hyssop, and once that is done, the children sprinkle the people one by one so that they may be purified from their sins? 2 Understand how plainly this is said to you: the calf is Jesus; the men who offer it, being sinners, are those who offered Him for slaughter. From then on it is no longer men who offer, and the glory is no longer for sinners. 3 The children who sprinkle are those who preached to us the forgiveness of sins and the purification of our heart—they, being twelve in number for a testimony to the tribes (for there are twelve tribes of Israel)—to whom He gave authority over the Gospel, that they might preach it.
70–135 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Barnabas

References

“... 1. The Epistle of Barnabas, a Christian theological tract thought to stem from about the end of the first century C.E., contains the following interpretation of the red cow ritual: But what do you think it typifies, that the commandment has been given to Israel that the men in whom sin is complete offer a heifer and slay it and burn it, and that boys then take the ashes and put them into vessels and bind scarlet wool on sticks (see again the type of the Cross and the scarlet wool) and hyssop, and that the boys all sprinkle the people thus one by one in order that they all be purified from their sins? A comparison of the details of this description with the halakah found in the Mishnah and Tosefta was already initiated by an historian of the rabbinic age, Gedalia Alon. The following is the perhaps somewhat embellished description of the procedure preserved in m. Parah 3:2: There were courtyards in Jerusalem built upon rock, with hollow space under them (thus avoiding the concern) for underground graves. They would bring pregnant women and they would give birth there and rear their sons there. They would bring oxen with doors upon their backs, and the children would sit upon them, with cups of stone in their hands. When they arrived at the Siloam, they descended and filled them. After they mixed ashes kept from previous red cow rites with the water, the children would sprinkle it upon the priest who was to perform the current rite (m. Parah 3:1). The ostensible aim of these precautions and the use of children reared in purity was to eliminate the possibility that those preparing the water and the ashes might themselves be carriers of corpse impurity. ...”
Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The Law and Spirit of Purity at Qumran,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Volume One: Scripture and the Scrolls, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 97.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Numbers 19:9 and Barnabas 8:1

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