(4) The defilement which necessitated the application of this water of separation is particularly connected with

(5) A person was rendered unclean by touching a dead body, being in a tent wherein a man died, touching a bone

or a grave.

It will be seen that some defilement was socially unavoidable. God would not have been pleased with that man

who for the avoidance of ceremonial defilement withdrew himself from the dead or the dying. Yet this presses upon

us the absolute necessity for the provision for uncleanness, for at times our very duties carry with them defilement,

and though `not of the world' we are nevertheless still `in the world', and though we are cleansed completely in one

sense, we shall, till our pilgrimage is over, be under the necessity to `wash the feet' continually (John 13:10). The

emphasis upon death and the dead in Numbers 19 provides the argument of Hebrews 9:14.

While it is a truth worthy of the fullest emphasis that the cleansing power of the blood of Christ excelled the

types and shadows as conscience is greater than ceremony and dead works more defiling than dead bodies, yet this

truth is placed here to lead on to another which is vital to the argument of the epistle:

`And because of this, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that death having taken place for a redemption of the

transgressions against the first covenant, those having been called might receive the promise of aeonian

inheritance. For where a covenant exists, it is necessary to bring in the death of the covenant victim, because a

covenant is confirmed over dead victims, since it is never valid when the covenant victim is living' (Heb.

This, it will be observed, is not a quotation, but a more literal rendering now to be considered.

To introduce the word `testament' here, with its associated ideas of a `will' and the death of the `testator', is

foreign both to Hebrew thought and the design of this epistle.

Diatheke occurs in Hebrews seventeen times, and in every occurrence other than those of 9:15-18 it is used of

either the Old or the New Covenant. Hebrews 9:20 reads `the blood of the testament'. The passage is a quotation

from Exodus 24:8, where the same version reads `the blood of the covenant'. The A.V. is obliged to introduce the

word `men' into Hebrews 9:17; we translate instead `dead victims', referring to the sacrifices that accompanied the

making of the covenant. In Hebrews 7:22 we read:

`By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament (covenant)'.

In 8:6:

`By how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant'.

In 12:24, in contrast with Mount Sinai and the Old Covenant, is placed Mount Sion and the New Covenant:

`And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of

It is clear from these passages that Hebrews 9:15 speaks not of a testament, but of a covenant in the Hebrew

sense of the word. In Hebrews 8:8-12 we have a long quotation from Jeremiah 31 concerning the Old and New

In Hebrews 10:15-17 this selfsame chapter is quoted again. Hebrews 9, which comes in between these two

quotations, is written expressly to show that Christ is the Mediator of that very covenant of prophecy, and the word

`testament' therefore, instead of helping forward the apostle's argument, tends to hinder it. After speaking of the

sprinkling of the Tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry, he adds:

`And almost all things are by the law cleansed by blood; and apart from the shedding of blood is no forgiveness' (Heb.

9:22 not AV JP).

Having come so far we shall now be able to appreciate the general structure of the chapter, which will be found

to be chiefly concerned with: