A fountain opened—for sin and for uncleanness— The blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all sin, (1 John 1:7.) is manifestly here intended, the Jews being, upon their repentance and conversion, to be admitted to all the privileges of the Christian covenant. The Hebrew words
חטאת chattath and נדה niddah, which we translate sin and uncleanness, are legal terms; the former denotes sin generally, or any transgression of the law which required atonement, and is sometimes put for the means of purification from it, Numbers 9:17.; the latter is used for that uncleanness, or legal defilement, which secluded a man from all intercourse with holy things. Now whatever efficacy the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on the unclean, had to purify from legal sin and defilement, the same is ascribed to the blood of Christ in the Christian dispensation, for purging the conscience of a sinner from the guilt of dead works, or all moral pollution. Hebrews 9:13-14.