“The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: This is a statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish and on which no yoke has been laid. You shall give it to the priest Eleazar, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. The priest Eleazar shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times towards the front of the tent of meeting. Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. The priest shall take cedarwood, hyssop, and crimson material, and throw them into the fire in which the heifer is burning. Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterwards he may come into the camp; but the priest shall remain unclean until evening. The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water; he shall remain unclean until evening. Then someone who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place; and they shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites for the water for cleansing. It is a purification offering. The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening.” Numbers 19:1-10

“Paint the town red:” The phrase “paint the town red” most likely owes its origin to one legendary night of drunkenness. In 1837, the Marquis of Waterford—a known lush and mischief maker—led a group of friends on a night of drinking through the English town of Melton Mowbray. The bender culminated in vandalism after Waterford and his fellow revelers knocked over flowerpots, pulled knockers off of doors and broke the windows of some of the town’s buildings. To top it all off, the mob literally painted a tollgate, the doors of several homes and a swan statue with red paint. The marquis and his pranksters later compensated Melton for the damages, but their drunken escapade is likely the reason that “paint the town red” became shorthand for a wild night out. Still yet another theory suggests the phrase was actually born out of the brothels of the American West, and referred to men behaving as though their whole town were a red-light district.

While the symbolism of the red heifer was, to Jewish Torah scholars, admittedly beyond true understanding for mere humans, by the second temple era they began to speculate about its “spiritual” significance. Some felt that it was an atonement for the sin of the golden calf (Exodus 32). Others viewed it as somehow relating to the scapegoat and the bullock sin offering of Yom Kippur, since all were sacrificed outside the camp of Israel (Lev 16:27). What is clear is that the sacrifice of the red heifer was for the purpose of purifying someone who had become ritually impure through contact with the dead (Num 31:21ff).

Perhaps we all need some atonement after “painting the town red” — depending on our actions and behavior. Thank the Lord we do not need to sacrifice a “red heifer” — but instead drop to our knees and profess our sins and know and believe that Jesus has already forgiven the penitent sinner.

Pastor Dave