You’ve probably noticed by now that there are boundary lines to just about everything in the Old Testament. The courtyard extended so far, the holy place was inside that, and the holy of holies was the most isolated of all.
Furthermore, there were access levels. Levites could only go so far, priests could only go so far, and High Priests could go most everywhere they wanted, but not all the time. The Old Law had significant checks and balances to make sure no one thing touched everything.
But what if you could do something that impacted the entire community?
There are two verses in Numbers 19 that describe “defiling the sanctuary,” and both of them have to do with failing to follow the right purification rituals.
Both of them also seem relatively mundane. If you don’t cleanse yourself on the third and seventh day after touching a corpse (Numbers 19:13), or after coming into contact with things associated with death (skeleton, grave, open vessels in a room where someone died), you are also guilty of defiling the sanctuary (Numbers 19:20).
That seems like a jump; after all, why should failing to wash your hands after attending Aunt Bertha’s funeral impact everyone?
The impurity associated with death is huge. Even priests who had to handle a dead body were still required to go through purification rituals (Leviticus 21:1-3, 11).
The reason is actually laid out in Genesis 1. If God is the Creator and the Giver of life, then death is exactly the opposite. As such, it can’t be associated with the Tabernacle, which reinstates and maintains spiritual life.
But ritual impurity is different from sin. Whereas impurities just render you unclean for the time being, the deliberate failure to cleanse yourself of those things is what constitutes the sin. I know what I’m supposed to do (purify myself) and yet, I refuse to do it. That refusal to follow God’s Word is the fundamental component of sin.
So why does that extend to everyone else? For the same reason that Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 5: “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” What goes knowingly unchecked in the camp has a ripple effect through the whole community. Before long, other sins will be rampant as well.
This delineation between sin and ritual impurity is made clear in passages like Numbers 15:27-31. Whereas unintentional sin is handled and atoned for, intentional sin—something done defiantly—results in that person being cut off from among the people. His guilt, as the verse says, is on him.
The point in Numbers 19 is not about the tension between impurity and the tabernacle, although you could connect those dots if you want.
The real issue here is someone choosing to not follow what God has told them to do. That disobedience is what really defiles the sanctuary.