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Archaeologists in the Holy Land and in other scattered Jewish settlements throughout the Middle East have uncovered ritual bathing pools, called mikvehs. An individual would walk down steps into the pool, into which running water would flow. Occasions for this ritual bath might be after sexual activity, after touching a corpse, or after eating meat of an animal that died naturally. There were other times for this also, and the purpose was to spiritually cleanse the body so that one would be pure before the Lord. When the writer to the Hebrews refers to "our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water," he may be alluding to the well-known practice of going to the mikveh. The Christian is assured of being cleansed and pure through one's relationship with Jesus, who is high priest over life.
