Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
- KJV And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
- NKJV Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain by a sword or who has died, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
- NASB Also, anyone who in the open field touches one who has been killed with a sword or one who has died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.
- NLT And if someone in an open field touches the corpse of someone who was killed with a sword or who died a natural death, or if someone touches a human bone or a grave, that person will be defiled for seven days.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Contact with a corpse, human bone, or grave in the open field made a person ceremonially unclean for seven days. It taught Israel that death is a defilement intruding into God's good creation.
Overview
This expands the law of the red heifer's purifying water to cover the most common forms of corpse-defilement. Death, the wage of sin, spreads uncleanness and bars one from God's presence until cleansing is made. The persistent link between death and impurity points forward to Christ, who by His own death and resurrection conquered death and cleanses His people from its defilement.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Matt 23:27Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity.
- Num 31:19All of you who have killed a person or touched the dead are to remain outside the camp for seven days. On the third day and the seventh day you are to purify both yourselves and your captives.
- Luke 11:44Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without even noticing.”
- Num 19:11Whoever touches any dead body will be unclean for seven days.
- Ezek 39:11–16And on that day I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Sea. It will block those who travel through, because Gog and all his hordes will be buried there. So it will be called the Valley of Hamon-gog.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 19:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.