Chukat

The portion opens with the statute of the red heifer: an unblemished cow, never yoked, slaughtered outside the camp and burned whole with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet; its ashes, mixed with fresh water, are the water of purification from contact with the dead. Whoever touches a corpse is unclean seven days, sprinkled on the third day and the seventh — and, in the statute's strange symmetry, those who prepare and apply the ashes themselves become unclean until evening.

The years pass to the fortieth. Miriam dies at Kadesh, and the water fails. The people quarrel — "why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness to die?" — and Moses and Aaron are told to take the staff and speak to the rock. Moses gathers the assembly — "listen now, you rebels" — and strikes the rock twice; water gushes out abundantly, but the word comes to Moses and Aaron: because you did not trust Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, you shall not bring this assembly into the land. Edom refuses Israel passage on the king's highway; and at Mount Hor Aaron is stripped of his vestments, which pass to his son Eleazar, and dies on the mountaintop, mourned thirty days by all the house of Israel.

The last stretch of wilderness is fought through. The Canaanite king of Arad attacks and is defeated at Hormah. The people speak against God and Moses over the bread and water, and fiery serpents strike; Moses is told to set a bronze serpent on a pole, and everyone bitten who looks at it lives. The journey stages pass — with the song of the well sung on the way — and messengers are sent to Sihon king of the Amorites, who refuses passage and attacks, and is defeated, his land taken from Arnon to Jabbok, Heshbon and all her towns. Og king of Bashan comes out at Edrei and falls likewise. Israel camps in the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from Jericho.