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Prescribed in ch. 19 is the ritual to be followed when one has become impure because of physical contact with something deceased (vv.11-16, 18, 22). Note the frequent use of touch in these eight verses.
In such instances a red heifer (or cow) was slaughtered outside the camp in the presence of a supervising priest, and its blood was sprinkled in the direction of the tabernacle (vv.3-4). Then the heifer was totally incinerated while the priest watched (v.5). The red hide of the heifer symbolically added to the quantity of blood, as did the red cedar wood and scarlet wool (v.6). Thereafter the ashes of the heifer were stored outside the city (v.9), ready to be mixed with water and sprinkled on anyone who had become ritually impure due to corpse contamination (vv.17-19). The whole ritual is described as a purification from sin (v.9). The NIV translation may be improved by reading v.9b as “purification from contamination.”
Why discuss such a ritual at this point in Numbers? To begin with, this ritual addresses the needs of an individual who had become impure by touching something that was dead. One recalls that there had been many instances of death in the preceding three chapters: Korah and his coinsurrectionists (16:35); the 14,700 plague casualties (16:49); the fear of death (17:1-13); death for encroachment (18:3, 7, 22); and death for failure to tithe (18:32). It is appropriate to follow this with a ritual involving contact with the deceased.
Second, note the pattern in which instances of divine judgment in the present (chs. 11-14) are followed by a chapter involving cultic regulations for the second generation and beyond (15:15, 21, 23). Again, chs. 16-18 are concerned with divine judgment in the present or immediate future. Ch. 19, on the other hand, sets forth a cultic ritual for the future—it is to be a lasting ordinance (vv.10, 21).