certain that there is an Egyptian reference, namely, the circumstance that the goat was sent to Azazel into the desert. The special residence of Typhon was in the desert, according to the Egyptian doctrine, which is most intimately connected with the natural condition of the country. There, accordingly, is Azazel placed in our passage, not in the belief that this was literally true, but merely symbolically. NUMBERS, CHAP. XIX. In the law concerning the manner of purifying those who have defiled themselves with the dead in Num. xix, it is said, verse 2: "Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish and upon which never came yoke." The inquiry whether an Egyptian reference is prominent here, must depend upon the significance of the red color demanded by the law. For, that this is not without significance we consider as evident without argument. "As respects the red color," Bä h r* correctly says, "this is nowhere else demanded for an animal offering or in general even any determinate color, so much the less then can it be doubted that its determination in this case is intentional." That the color here must have a significance, has at all times been generally acknowledged, although it has been declared difficult and in some respects impossible to fully determine its import; as, for example, the old Rabbins said, that not even Solomon knew why the heifer must be of red to the exclusion of all other colors.† * We maintain that the red color of the heifer serves Symb. 2. S. 498. Compare also Witsius, Aeg. 115: At quae tandem causa dici potest cur, cum in caeteris sacrificiis omnibus sine colorum discrimine munda animantia rite offerrentur, solam hanc lustralem vaccam rubram esse necesse fuerit? to characterize it as a sin-offering. We adduce the following arguments in proof of this assumption: 1. Isaiah 1: 18 shows undeniably that the red color in the symbolic language of the Scriptures denotes sin: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." The context, verse 15, "Your hands are full of blood," verse 21, "and now murderers," shows at once, on what this significance rests, namely, on the fact that in the shedding of innocent blood their sin was consummated. 2. According to this interpretation both the designated peculiarities of the beast for sacrifice grow up from one and the same root; as a sin-offering, it is at the same time a female and red. The answer to the question why a heifer must here be offered, while in Lev. 4: 14 the rule is laid down that each sin-offering for the whole congregation shall be a bullock, lies manifestly in the phrase 7 N, it is a sinoffering, literally, it is sin, in verse 9 and verse 17. Since sin in Hebrew is of the feminine gender, so must the animal also be which bears its image, which representing it shall atone for it. 3. According to this explanation, the red color of the heifer corresponds accurately with the scarlet, with which and cedar wood and hyssop her ashes are to be mingled. That also this designates sin is evident from Isa. 1: 18, already quoted, which must be considered as an approved interpretation.* Bährt exerts himself in vain to show that in Hebrew the scarlet is the symbol of life. He has not adduced in favor of it, the semblance of a proof. Let it not be said that the scarlet cannot, on account of its union with cedar and hyssop be a symbol of sin. This connexion which occurs once besides, in the directions for purifying the leprous person, in Lev. 14: 4, may be explained as follows: The key for the interpreta *They in Num. xix. is in Isaiah separated: is in the first clause, and in in the second. + Symbol. 1. S. 334 ff. tion of cedar and hyssop which are not to be separated from one another, as Bähr* has done, but must be considered in connection, as they never appear singly, is furnished by 1 Kings 5: 13, (4:33): From the cedar upon Lebanon even to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall. The cedar as the loftiest among created things—hence the cedars in Scripture are the cedars of God, Ps. 80: 11, (10),—symbolizes his elevation and majesty; the hyssop on the contrary, as the least, his lowliness and condescension which David celebrates in Ps. viii. In the cedar and the hyssop, both the divine qualities are represented which are exercised in the atonement and forgiveness of sin; his majesty which gives the right and power, and his lowliness and compassionate love which ensures the will. The scarlet represents the object with reference to which both these divine qualities are exercised, the occasion for which they are displayed.‡ 4. The reference of the red color to sin is in accordance with the spirit of the whole rite described in Num. xix. Everything in it points to the fact that the consciousness of sin unfolds itself in death, the image and recompense of sin.§ * 11. p. 503. + Compare Ps. 18: 36. Grotius was substantially in the right way of explaining this rite, when he remarked upon Lev. xiv: Superbiam cedrus significat, vermiculus, sive coccinum peccatum, et hyssopus oppositam virtutem, ταπεινοφροσύνην. He erred only in making the sinner instead of God, the possessor of the attributes represented by cedar and hyssop. Bähr says, Th. 2. S. 503: "Purifying power is ascribed to the hyssop in Ps. 51: 9. But why? it is asked, and this question cannot be answered from the passage itself, but from the 'locus classicus' to which David the same as expressly refers. If it is correctly understood, this verse of the Psalm li. also appears in its true light. It is the condescending love and pity of God in which David takes refuge, when he desires to be purged with hyssop. § This appears so much the more as such, when we take into account the immediate occasion of this law. "Occasionem praebente," remarks Deyling, Obss. Sac. p. 73, pollutorum multitudine The whole has the remembrance of sins, ἀνάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν, Heb. 10: 3, for its object. Since the sin-offering here represents sin, and is designed to awaken the consciousness of the odiousness of sin for itself, it cannot be slain in the holy place like all other offerings, but this must rather be done out of the camp. While in other cases of sin-offering for the people, the blood was sprinkled seven times before the vail,* it was here from without the camp, sprinkled only in the direction of the vail. The whole animal was burned, and not even a part of it was laid on the altar as in the case of other sinofferings for the congregation. The ceremony notwithstanding its importance was not performed by the high priest himself, who must not defile himself, but by the oldest of his sons; and even he performed only that which must necessarily be done by a priest; all the rest was executed by persons who were not priests. All the persons empoyed were defiled, even the water of purification polluted the clean person. The clean man who performed the purification, was in consequence of doing this, impure until evening, and must then wash his garments and bathe himself; according to verse 21, every person who touched the water of purification was unclean. These are the reasons which declare in favor of our interpretation. But the following objection is raised against it. It can scarcely be conceived how that by which sin is to be removed can itself be characterized as sin. "Indeed all sinofferings are themselves considered as something most holy after death, so that they can be eaten only by holy persons, by priests." Every thought of sin is here especially excluded in castris Israelitarum qui ex cadaveribus seditiosorum cum Korah tumultum contra Mosem excitaret, contaminati erant." Yet, in this case, the general import of death is only shown in a particularly conspicuous manner. That according to the Israelitish view death generally is considered as the image and recompense of sin, is shown by Gen. 2: 17 and 3: 19. * Lev. 4: 17. + Bahr, S. 501. by the phrase "a perfect one, in which is no blemish, and on which yoke never came." The most simple and natural answer to this objection is this: If the heifer could be called sin, (the word no means literally only this, not sin-offering,) its color could as well at least, symbolize the same thing. When the symbol thus interpreted is explained as inappropriate, the name is also, and the way is closed against its justification. Farther, the same antithesis which is considered as inadmissable in the qualifications of the heifer, and which it is attempted to exclude, are seen everywhere throughout the whole rite, so that nothing is gained, if it is forcibly excluded here. As the purifying power which exists in the ashes of the offering corresponds with the declaration, "a perfect one, and in which is no blemish," and is founded on this quality; so the fact that all who come in contact with the animal and his ashes are defiled, is in accordance with the character of sin expressed by the gender and color. If we go back to the idea of substitution, which lies at the basis of all sin-offerings, the twofold character which is carried through the whole rite is explained. The substitution at once requires two things: original purity and imputed impurity, or natural sinlessness and assumed sinfulness. The union of both appears most conspicuous in the antitype of all sin-offerings, in him whom when he knew no sin God made to be sin for us. * * Compare Deyling, Obss. Sac. p. 78: "Haec enim vacca, quae ab omni macula esse debebat immunis, ob suscepta tamen inquinamenta populi immundissima facta est, quid aliud significavit, quam Christum. Hunc enim μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν deus ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς γινώμεθα δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ,” 2 Cor. 5 21. The twofold nature which belongs to sin-offerings generally, and specially to this one, is explained with substantial correctness by Spencer, p. 503: "E legis usa factum est, ut animalia omnia ad peccatum et immunditiem tollendam seposita, puritatem quidem offerentibus, maximam autem immunditiem sibi ipsis conciliarent: prout |