This week we are reading Zechariah 13. When the people saw the pierced figure of chapter 12, the nation erupted in mourning and repentance. Chapter 13 provides God’s reaction to those heartfelt cries. As a symbol of his forgiveness, God graciously provides a spring to cleanse the royal family and all of Jerusalem’s inhabitants. Just as the mourning was communal, so will be the cleansing. The verse reads, “On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity” (13:1). Sin (hattāt) is moral failings and impurity (nidda) is physical defilement from contact with unclean things. By God’s grace, the fountain of cleansing purifies both and brings fulfillment to the spiritual revival that started in the previous chapter.
Purity rituals were and still are essential to the Jewish faith. The rituals described in Leviticus 12-15 and Numbers 19 are not purposefully hygienic acts, even if they have a public health benefit like the requirement to ritually cleanse after childbirth or self-isolate after contact with a dead body. The rituals are instead symbolic, kinetic ways for humans to declare their purification. Only once impure people have been cleansed can they reenter the community of Yahweh and participate in sacrificial worship.
