2 Give orders to the children of Israel to put outside the tent-circle every leper, and anyone who has any sort of flow from his body, and anyone who is unclean from the touch of the dead;
And there were certain men who were unclean because of a dead body, so that they were not able to keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day: And these men said to him, We have been made unclean by the dead body of a man; why may we not make the offering of the Lord at the regular time among the children of Israel? And Moses said to them, Do nothing till the Lord gives me directions about you. And the Lord said to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, If any one of you or of your families is unclean because of a dead body, or is on a journey far away, still he is to keep the Passover to the Lord:
Say to the children of Israel: If a man has an unclean flow from his flesh, it will make him unclean. If the flow goes on or if the part is stopped up, to keep back the flow, he is still unclean. Every bed on which he has been resting will be unclean, and everything on which he has been seated will be unclean. And anyone touching his bed is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. And he who has been seated on anything on which the unclean man has been seated is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. And anyone touching the flesh of the unclean man is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. And if liquid from the mouth of the unclean man comes on to him who is clean, then he is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. And any leather seat on a horse on which the unclean man has been seated will be unclean. And anyone touching anything which was under him will be unclean till the evening; anyone taking up any of these things is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. And anyone on whom the unclean man puts his hands, without washing them in water, is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. And any vessel of earth which has been touched by the unclean man will have to be broken and any vessel of wood washed. And when a man who has a flow from his body is made clean from it, he is to take seven days to make himself clean, washing his clothing and bathing his body in flowing water, and then he will be clean. And on the eighth day he is to take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the door of the Tent of meeting and give them to the priest: And they are to be offered by the priest, one for a sin-offering and one for a burned offering, and the priest will take away his sin before the Lord on account of his flow. And if a man's seed goes out from him, then all his body will have to be bathed in water and he will be unclean till evening. And any clothing or skin on which the seed comes is to be washed with water and be unclean till evening. And if a man has sex relations with a woman and his seed goes out from him, the two of them will have to be bathed in water and will be unclean till evening. And if a woman has a flow of blood from her body, she will have to be kept separate for seven days, and anyone touching her will be unclean till evening. And everything on which she has been resting, while she is kept separate, will be unclean, and everything on which she has been seated will be unclean. And anyone touching her bed will have to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. And anyone touching anything on which she has been seated will have to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening. Anyone touching anything on the bed or on the thing on which she has been seated, will be unclean till evening. And if any man has sex relations with her so that her blood comes on him, he will be unclean for seven days and every bed on which he has been resting will be unclean. And if a woman has a flow of blood for a long time, not at the time when she generally has it, or if the flow goes on longer than the normal time, she will be unclean while the flow of blood goes on, as she is at other normal times. Every bed on which she has been resting will be unclean, as at the times when she normally has a flow of blood, and everything on which she has been seated will be unclean, in the same way. And anyone touching these things will be unclean, and his clothing will have to be washed and his body bathed in water and he will be unclean till evening.
Anyone touching a dead body will be unclean for seven days: On the third day and on the seventh day he is to make himself clean with the water, and so he will be clean: but if he does not do this on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean. Anyone touching the body of a dead man without making himself clean in this way, makes the House of the Lord unclean; and that man will be cut off from Israel: because the water was not put on him, he will be unclean; his unclean condition is unchanged. This is the law when death comes to a man in his tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, will be unclean for seven days. And every open vessel without a cover fixed on it will be unclean. And anyone touching one who has been put to death with the sword in the open country, or the body of one who has come to his end by a natural death, or a man's bone, or the resting-place of a dead body, will be unclean for seven days.
In connection with the leper's disease, take care to keep and do every detail of the teaching of the priests, the Levites: as I gave them orders, so you are to do. Keep in mind what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way, when you came out of Egypt.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Numbers 5
Commentary on Numbers 5 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 5
Nu 5:1-4. The Unclean to Be Removed out of the Camp.
2. Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper—The exclusion of leprous persons from the camp in the wilderness, as from cities and villages afterwards, was a sanitary measure taken according to prescribed rules (Le 13:1-14:57). This exclusion of lepers from society has been acted upon ever since; and it affords almost the only instance in which any kind of attention is paid in the East to the prevention of contagion. The usage still more or less prevails in the East among people who do not think the least precaution against the plague or cholera necessary; but judging from personal observation, we think that in Asia the leprosy has now much abated in frequency and virulence. It usually appears in a comparatively mild form in Egypt, Palestine, and other countries where the disorder is, or was, endemic. Small societies of excluded lepers live miserably in paltry huts. Many of them are beggars, going out into the roads to solicit alms, which they receive in a wooden bowl; charitable people also sometimes bring different articles of food, which they leave on the ground at a short distance from the hut of the lepers, for whom it is intended. They are generally obliged to wear a distinctive badge that people may know them at first sight and be warned to avoid them. Other means were adopted among the ancient Jews by putting their hand on their mouth and crying, "Unclean, unclean" [Le 13:45]. But their general treatment, as to exclusion from society, was the same as now described. The association of the lepers, however, in this passage, with those who were subject only to ceremonial uncleanness, shows that one important design in the temporary exile of such persons was to remove all impurities that reflected dishonor on the character and residence of Israel's King. And this vigilant care to maintain external cleanliness in the people was typically designed to teach them the practice of moral purity, or cleansing themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. The regulations made for ensuring cleanliness in the camp suggest the adoption of similar means for maintaining purity in the church. And although, in large communities of Christians, it may be often difficult or delicate to do this, the suspension or, in flagrant cases of sin, the total excommunication of the offender from the privileges and communion of the church is an imperative duty, as necessary to the moral purity of the Christian as the exclusion of the leper from the camp was to physical health and ceremonial purity in the Jewish church.
Nu 5:5-10. Restitution Enjoined.
6-8. When a man or a woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord—This is a wrong or injury done by one man to the property of another, and as it is called "a trespass against the Lord," it is implied, in the case supposed, that the offense has been aggravated by prevaricating—by a false oath, or a fraudulent lie in denying it, which is a "trespass" committed against God, who is the sole judge of what is falsely sworn or spoken (Ac 5:3, 4).
and that person be guilty—that is, from the obvious tenor of the passage, conscience-smitten, or brought to a sense and conviction of his evil conduct. (See on Le 6:2). In that case, there must be: first, confession, a penitential acknowledgment of sin; secondly, restitution of the property, or the giving of an equivalent, with the additional fine of a fifth part, both as a compensation to the person defrauded, and as a penalty inflicted on the injurer, to deter others from the commission of similar trespasses. (See on Ex 22:1). The difference between the law recorded in that passage and this is that the one was enacted against flagrant and determined thieves, the other against those whose necessities might have urged them into fraud, and whose consciences were distressed by their sin. This law also supposes the injured party to be dead, in which case, the compensation due to his representatives was to be paid to the priest, who, as God's deputy, received the required satisfaction.
9, 10. every offering … shall be his—Whatever was given in this way, or otherwise, as by freewill offerings, irrevocably belonged to the priest.
Nu 5:11-31. The Trial of Jealousy.
12-15. if any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him—This law was given both as a strong discouragement to conjugal infidelity on the part of a wife, and a sufficient protection of her from the consequences of a hasty and groundless suspicion on the part of the husband. His suspicions, however, were sufficient in the absence of witnesses (Le 20:10) to warrant the trial described; and the course of proceeding to be followed was for the jealous husband to bring his wife unto the priest with an offering of barley meal, because none were allowed to approach the sanctuary empty handed (Ex 23:15). On other occasions, there were mingled with the offering, oil which signified joy, and frankincense which denoted acceptance (Ps 141:2). But on the occasion referred to, both these ingredients were to be excluded, partly because it was a solemn appeal to God in distressing circumstances, and partly because it was a sin offering on the part of the wife, who came before God in the character of a real or suspected offender.
17, 18. the priest shall take holy water—Water from the laver, which was to be mixed with dust—an emblem of vileness and misery (Ge 3:14; Ps 22:15).
in an earthen vessel—This fragile ware was chosen because, after being used, it was broken in pieces (Le 6:28; 11:33). All the circumstances of this awful ceremony—her being placed with her face toward the ark—her uncovered head, a sign of her being deprived of the protection of her husband (1Co 11:7)—the bitter potion being put into her hands preparatory to an appeal to God—the solemn adjuration of the priest (Nu 5:19-22), all were calculated in no common degree to excite and appall the imagination of a person conscious of guilt.
21. The Lord make thee a curse, &c.—a usual form of imprecation (Isa 65:15; Jer 29:22).
22. the woman shall say, Amen, Amen—The Israelites were accustomed, instead of formally repeating the words of an oath merely to say, "Amen," a "so be it" to the imprecations it contained. The reduplication of the word was designed as an evidence of the woman's innocence, and a willingness that God would do to her according to her desert.
23, 24. write these curses in a book—The imprecations, along with her name, were inscribed in some kind of record—on parchment, or more probably on a wooden tablet.
blot them out with the bitter water—If she were innocent, they could be easily erased, and were perfectly harmless; but if guilty, she would experience the fatal effects of the water she had drunk.
29. This is the law of jealousies—Adultery discovered and proved was punished with death. But strongly suspected cases would occur, and this law made provision for the conviction of the guilty person. It was, however, not a trial conducted according to the forms of judicial process, but an ordeal through which a suspected adulteress was made to go—the ceremony being of that terrifying nature, that, on the known principles of human nature, guilt or innocence could not fail to appear. From the earliest times, the jealousy of Eastern people has established ordeals for the detection and punishment of suspected unchastity in wives. The practice was deep-rooted as well as universal. And it has been thought, that the Israelites being strongly biassed in favor of such usages, this law of jealousies "was incorporated among the other institutions of the Mosaic economy, in order to free it from the idolatrous rites which the heathens had blended with it." Viewed in this light, its sanction by divine authority in a corrected and improved form exhibits a proof at once of the wisdom and condescension of God.