YHWH’s dwelling among His people is the extensive goal of the exodus salvation from Genesis to Revelation. Humanity is in exile, doomed to wither and decay, separated from the Source of life. But YHWH is a God of the living, not the dead. Only in Him and through Him is life. He is the fountain of living water and the bread of life we must take in to live. Our Creator is He who brings us out of bondage and brings us in to life. Moving from the state of death to dwelling with and in communion with a holy God requires a de-creation of the fleshly heart with its evil passions to a new creation heart attuned to YHWH’s Holy Spirit. At the Feast of Tabernacles, we are to contemplate the path of the exodus, what started it, and follow the red thread from exile to living in His Presence. Since YHWH dwelt in the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the Camp of Israel was bound by holiness, yet death’s pollution was in the Camp. This blog explores how YHWH prevailed to resolve the conflict.

At the center section of the book of Numbers, Chapters 11-25, YHWH provided the new generation with a means to be cleansed from the first generation’s rebellion and death so that He could remain in their midst, allowing the tribes to continue gathering around the Tent of Meeting¹. Without Israel’s tribes living within the shadow of His wings in the light of His face, sharing His bread and drink, His Word and Spirit, His body and blood, the covenant promises made to the patriarchs become null and void. Pledged by covenant, YHWH predetermined Israel to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” filled with the light of His glory before the nations. Because YHWH thinks and lives on a higher plane of existence, the new generation’s corpse pollution must be washed away before they draw near to ingest that which is holy. Chapter 19 is YHWH’s word to Moses and Aaron, instructing the Israelites in the red heifer laws of purification, performed and mediated through the redeemed firstborn priesthood as a gift so that there may be no more wrath on the children of Israel (Numbers 18). Since the priesthood had the duty of keeping the Tent of Meeting free from contamination of sin, protecting YHWH’s throne sanctuary, their task was to sprinkle the blood of the red heifer before the Tabernacle and on those outside of the Camp defiled by corpse pollution before re-entering the Camp. Obedience to these laws forged a red lifeline connected to YHWH’s holiness.

Numbers 19’s cleansing from contact with death’s decay to the purity of holy life in YHWH’s Presence distinguished between Israel’s two wilderness generations. For thirty-eight years after the first generation’s faithless refusal to enter the Land at Kadesh, Israel became a walking morgue. The new generation had to touch death to bury the first generation. Eleazar’s sacrifice of the red heifer and cleansing ritual washed away death’s defilement from the Israelites so they could re-enter the life-giving Camp of Israel after seven days and not defile the sanctuary of YHWH (Num. 19:13, 20).

Unique among the offerings, the wholly red heifer with her blood was incinerated along with red (cedar) wood, hyssop, and a crimson cord. The focus of a female whole burnt offering (used only for individual purification) was on the role of red blood. Biblically, blood and water were the two most powerful cleansing agents, so that by combining the living water with the ashes containing the heifer’s body and blood, red wood, hyssop, and a red cord², produced “waters for purification” or “waters of separation” for whenever an Israelite became defiled by a corpse. The priest sprinkled the defiled person with the waters of separation outside the Camp on the third day³ and on the seventh day, after which the Israelite could enter the Camp. The ritual served as a passage from outside the Camp (wilderness, death) to inside the Camp (YHWH’s dwelling place, life-giving)⁴, which links the Passover blood with crossing Yam Suph (baptism) and the Day of Atonement’s sin offering blood with giving the priest entrance into YHWH’s throne room. The hyssop branch dipped in lamb’s blood and smeared on the Israelites’ door became a symbol for cleansing external pollution and the internally defiled human heart (Exo. 12:22; Lev. 14:4; Num. 19:6, 18; Psa. 51:7).

Elsewhere, the healing from sin’s poisonous effects is connected to the branch Moses threw into the bitter waters at Marah, making them sweet (Exo. 15:25-26). When Moses confirmed the covenant with Israel at Sinai, he sprinkled the Israelites and the scroll of the covenant with blood, water, scarlet wool, and hyssop and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you to keep” (Heb. 9:19-20). Likewise, the new Moses, Yeshua, at His last Passover, took a cup of wine, saying, “For this is My blood of the covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sin” (Mat. 26:28). Earlier, Yeshua had told those in the Capernaum synagogue, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in Me, and I in him” (Jhn. 6:56). And when He had taken upon Himself the sins of humanity, hanging crucified on the cross, Yeshua received sour wine on hyssop to quench His thirst and said, “It is finished!” then bowed His head and gave up His spirit. It was His exodus through our death pollution outside the Camp to life in the Camp, a passage all humanity must follow, sprinkled with the living water of the red heifer. We become the new generation through Him, baptized and created in Him. Through one sacrifice, our High Priest gave us the blood of the covenant, saving us from the destroyer by the red thread from Passover to Atonement to Sukkot’s waters of purification so that with altered biology, we, rightly discerning the holiness of YHWH’s dwelling place, might enter His Camp, the dynamic, breathing City of God.

Takeaway:
Bound by holiness, the Camp of Israel spread out in sukkot before the face of YHWH, His light shining upon them a new form of consciousness from within the Tent of Meeting. At the Feast, when each generation re-enacts dwelling in sukkot, remembering the way YHWH led Israel in the wilderness, we must remember foremost the blood of the covenant, protecting and purifying us to enter and live in His holy Presence. Yeshua has acted decisively to save His people one by one. He became the red heifer purification waters, the entrance rite into eternity with Him. To fully enter the Kingdom of God, we must have a cognitive estrangement from the fictional world of sin and death and be changed, purified by the red blood of the exodus journey.

Fun Factors:
The center division of the Book of Numbers, Chapters 11-25, have 24397 letters, 31 × 787, whose sum is 818, 23² + 17² (the power of living victory), in 6509 words, 23 × 283, whose sum is 306, 15² + 9² (the power of restoration through judgment), totaling 789783, 6 × 41 × 6421 or 6 × 41(70² + 39²), numerically saying the Man in the God’s Tent (miskan) is He who perfects (4900, 7² × 10²) Israel on her new creation exodus (39² = 1512). The letter count, 24397’s digit product (2 × 4 × 3 × 9 × 7) also equals 39², 1512, and 24397’s digit sum is 25, 5², marking perfecting holiness in the fear of God, the cleansing from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (2Co. 7:1).

Numbers 19, the Laws of Purification, has 1268 letters, 2² × 317, 28² + 22², or 4(14² + 11²), in 346 words, 2 × 173, 15² + 11²; 173 + 2 = 175; 346 digit product is 72, and its sum is 13; divided 3 + 46 = 49, 7², totaling 76297, 13 × 5869, 96² + 259², 96 = 8 × 12, 259 = 7 × 37, numerically saying the light of God’s word in the house of Passover (lamb’s blood) restores Abraham’s seed through the sojourn of the holydays through the names of YHWH to a new creation from death to life.