Numbers 19:6: “And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the heifer. And I was curious what the scarlet yarn was, probably from my experiences with Campus Crusade growing up and The Scarlet Thread. So I began to hunt. I check the Hebrew, but it just has scarlet (although the word for scarlet implies the thread from the spider from which it comes) – no actual material is mentioned. So then I looked at the dictionary aids… no scarlet, just the heifer, cedar and hyssop. Finally I looked at the commentaries, and I found one by Ray Stedman called “Numbers: An Incomplete Life.” [1] It doesn’t have anything about the scarlet either, but he did say something interesting: In Numbers we have dramatically set forth what is perhaps the hardest lesson a Christian has to learn—to trust God instead of his own reason. That’s so true! One of the hardest things to do as a human being is to stop trying to figure it all out. Often God asks us to do first, and understand (maybe) later. As He asks Job, who are we to question Him (Job 32:8)? Reasoning things is such a Greek way of thinking. Trust is much harder. Trust implies relationship with someone we believe has our best interests in mind. It’s really hard to trust someone we don’t know (think of politicians…). How can we trust a God we don’t know. Ah, and there’s the crux of the problem. We don’t know Him because we don’t search for Him. We don’t take the time from our insanely busy schedules to know Him more deeply. I still don’t understand the scarlet as part of the sacrifice for the waters of the impure, but I will keep seeking. Scarlet is seen so often throughout the Bible, usually in association with God or events that save or rescue. It seems to me that there is a reason what it had to be burned with the cow. No accidents. [1] Stedman, Ray. “Adventuring Through the Bible: Numbers, the Incomplete Life.” Blue Letter Bible – Commentaries. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 May 2010. <http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=9&contentID=30&commInfo=2&topic=Numbers&ar=Num_19_6>.