Eleazar To Wash His Clothes and Bathe and Return To Camp and To Be Unclean Until the Evening (Numbers 19:7).
“ Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterwards he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even.”
Having fulfilled his function the priest would then return to the camp, indicating that he had accomplished what he had come to do (Numbers 19:3). But preparatory to this he had to wash his clothes to remove defilement, and bathe himself in order to remove any element of his participation in the ceremony (contrast the man in Numbers 19:10). He had been in contact with what represented death. He was then to remain in isolation within the camp until the evening. The isolation was to be within the camp of the holy people, indicating its part in the cleansing process, but he could not approach the Sanctuary. He was temporarily ‘unclean'.