| << Num 4 | |
| This is the New King James text of the passages. |
Numbers 5-6 Listen 
Get the unclean folks out (Numbers 5:1-4)
1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
2 “Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse.
3 You shall put out both male and female; you shall put them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell.”
4 And the children of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp; as the LORD spoke to Moses, so the children of Israel did.
We saw back in Leviticus three categories of uncleanness given special attention.
It was the priests' job to keep the camp of Israel free of uncleanness. These four verses raise some questions which are not easily answered regarding the day-to-day practice of Israel. The two chapters, Leviticus 13-14 (see notes), make it very clear that lepers had a place outside the camp where they stayed until they were deemed to be clean. Furthermore, those touching dead bodies are clearly dealt with in Numbers 19:11 (see notes), "He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days." Here we are told that during the period of their uncleanness, they are to stay outside the camp. Presumably, they had their own place separate from those with skin disorders. But it's the "bodily discharge" stipulation of these verses that is difficult to surmise exactly how they practiced it. In Deuteronomy 23:10-14 (see notes) we are told that bodily relief was only to take place outside the camp. If, due to a surprise occurrence during the night, the person was unable to make it outside the camp in time, that person was to remain outside the camp for the remainder of the day before he could be pronounced clean again. The context of that passage may be indicating this to be the practice for battle encampments only. There's not enough written to be certain of the common practice.
The most difficult of these to reconcile with the brief scripture provided is regarding a woman's monthly cycle. We are told in Leviticus 15:19 (see notes) that "she shall be put apart seven days." While we might get the impression from Leviticus 15 (see notes) that this separation might be isolation within the camp, Numbers 5:1-4 here would indicate that even the woman on her monthly cycle was to have a place outside the camp where she was to go for that week each month. Hmmmmm...away from the kids, no meal preparation, cleaning, etc. - maybe this is not so bad. However, that does leave a lot of unanswered questions about family care that simply aren't addressed in scripture.
Makin' it right after you cheat or steal (Numbers 5:5-10)
5 ¶ Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
6 “Speak to the children of Israel: ‘When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit in unfaithfulness against the LORD, and that person is guilty,
7 then he shall confess the sin which he has committed. He shall make restitution for his trespass in full, plus one-fifth of it, and give it to the one he has wronged.
8 But if the man has no relative to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution for the wrong must go to the LORD for the priest, in addition to the ram of the atonement with which atonement is made for him.
9 Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which they bring to the priest, shall be his.
10 And every man’s holy things shall be his; whatever any man gives the priest shall be his.’ ”
Here's the offering scenario we saw back in Leviticus 5-6 (see notes). If you stole from or cheated a fellow Hebrew, you had to pay it back with a 20% penalty and make the appropriate sacrifice to the priest. If the person defrauded had died in the interim, you paid the near kinsman.
So...the husband thinks the wife has committed adultery (Numbers 5:11-31)
11 ¶ And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
12 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘If any man’s wife goes astray and behaves unfaithfully toward him,
13 and a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and it is concealed that she has defiled herself, and there was no witness against her, nor was she caught—
14 if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes jealous of his wife, who has defiled herself; or if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes jealous of his wife, although she has not defiled herself—
15 then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. He shall bring the offering required for her, one-tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering of jealousy, an offering for remembering, for bringing iniquity to remembrance.
16 ¶ “And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD.
17 The priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water.
18 Then the priest shall stand the woman before the LORD, uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that brings a curse.
19 And the priest shall put her under oath, and say to the woman, “If no man has lain with you, and if you have not gone astray to uncleanness while under your husband’s authority, be free from this bitter water that brings a curse.
20 But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has lain with you”—
21 then the priest shall put the woman under the oath of the curse, and he shall say to the woman—“the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the LORD makes your thigh rot and your belly swell;
22 and may this water that causes the curse go into your stomach, and make your belly swell and your thigh rot.” ¶ “Then the woman shall say, ‘Amen, so be it.”
23 ¶ “Then the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall scrape them off into the bitter water.
24 And he shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter her to become bitter.
25 Then the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman’s hand, shall wave the offering before the LORD, and bring it to the altar;
26 and the priest shall take a handful of the offering, as its memorial portion, burn it on the altar, and afterward make the woman drink the water.
27 When he has made her drink the water, then it shall be, if she has defiled herself and behaved unfaithfully toward her husband, that the water that brings a curse will enter her and become bitter, and her belly will swell, her thigh will rot, and the woman will become a curse among her people.
28 But if the woman has not defiled herself, and is clean, then she shall be free and may conceive children.
29 ¶ “This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, while under her husband’s authority, goes astray and defiles herself,
30 or when the spirit of jealousy comes upon a man, and he becomes jealous of his wife; then he shall stand the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute all this law upon her.
31 Then the man shall be free from iniquity, but that woman shall bear her guilt.’ ”
I guess the place to begin explaining this section is by quoting from the Ten Commandments; Exodus 20:14 (see notes) says, "You shall not commit adultery." But what if it were concluded definitely that someone had committed adultery? Leviticus 20:10 (see notes) says, "The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death." Let me draw a conclusion here; if you're a woman who commits adultery, you're likely to lie about having done so...am I right? Well, Numbers 5:11-31 has a test of integrity for you! Keep in mind, an admission of guilt results in the deaths of two people, the man and the woman - a real incentive to stick to your cover story.
Marital infidelity by the woman was considered to be a grave offense because it threatened the purity of the lineage. In the Mosaic Law, adultery specifically speaks to sexual contact between a married woman and a man other than her husband. Since Israel at that time was a polygynous society, sexual contact between a married man and an unmarried woman was not categorized as adultery.
When a husband becomes suspicious that his wife has committed adultery as he experiences a "spirit of jealousy," he takes his wife before the priest with an offering. When she admits nothing, here are the steps the priest takes:
If the woman is guilty, "her belly will swell, her thigh will rot" (27). What does that mean? Some have suggested that she will become pregnant and miscarry - never to be able to bear children again. However, the consequences of this trial by ordeal seem to me to be more immediate than that. Others have suggested such female maladies as a flooded uterus, a pelvic prolapse or swollen then atrophied genitalia. Whatever the intermediate symptoms, the inability to bear children afterward seems to be conclusive (verse 28). If she is guiltless of her husband's suspicions, she remains healthy and unaffected by the ritual and able to bear children.
It has been suggested that perhaps the "spirit of jealousy" was brought on by a suspicious pregnancy - one in which the husband suspected that he was not the father of the child. If that's the case, then the consequences of the water ordeal may be a little clearer to us inasmuch as we may be talking about a difficult pregnancy ending in miscarriage. However, that's just speculation.
The sacred vow of the Nazarite (Numbers 6:1-21)
1 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When either a man or woman consecrates an offering to take the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD,
3 he shall separate himself from wine and similar drink; he shall drink neither vinegar made from wine nor vinegar made from similar drink; neither shall he drink any grape juice, nor eat fresh grapes or raisins.
4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, from seed to skin.
5 ¶ “All the days of the vow of his separation no razor shall come upon his head; until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the LORD, he shall be holy. Then he shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.
6 All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall not go near a dead body.
7 He shall not make himself unclean even for his father or his mother, for his brother or his sister, when they die, because his separation to God is on his head.
8 All the days of his separation he shall be holy to the LORD.
9 ¶ “And if anyone dies very suddenly beside him, and he defiles his consecrated head, then he shall shave his head on the day of his cleansing; on the seventh day he shall shave it.
10 Then on the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting;
11 and the priest shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because he sinned in regard to the corpse; and he shall sanctify his head that same day.
12 He shall consecrate to the LORD the days of his separation, and bring a male lamb in its first year as a trespass offering; but the former days shall be lost, because his separation was defiled.
13 ¶ “Now this is the law of the Nazirite: When the days of his separation are fulfilled, he shall be brought to the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
14 And he shall present his offering to the LORD: one male lamb in its first year without blemish as a burnt offering, one ewe lamb in its first year without blemish as a sin offering, one ram without blemish as a peace offering,
15 a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and their grain offering with their drink offerings.
16 ¶ “Then the priest shall bring them before the LORD and offer his sin offering and his burnt offering;
17 and he shall offer the ram as a sacrifice of a peace offering to the LORD, with the basket of unleavened bread; the priest shall also offer its grain offering and its drink offering.
18 Then the Nazirite shall shave his consecrated head at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and shall take the hair from his consecrated head and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace offering.
19 ¶ “And the priest shall take the boiled shoulder of the ram, one unleavened cake from the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and put them upon the hands of the Nazirite after he has shaved his consecrated hair,
20 and the priest shall wave them as a wave offering before the LORD; they are holy for the priest, together with the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the heave offering. After that the Nazirite may drink wine.’
21 ¶ “This is the law of the Nazirite who vows to the LORD the offering for his separation, and besides that, whatever else his hand is able to provide; according to the vow which he takes, so he must do according to the law of his separation.”
The vow of the Nazarite involved consecrating oneself to God for a limited time period. They were treated as lay priests, having restrictions similar to priests. The vow imposed a number of restrictions to one's lifestyle i.e. abstaining from fermented drinks and grape products, abstaining from cutting one's hair and abstaining from coming into contact with the dead.
Here's the procedure for the ritual vow to becoming a Nazarite - man or woman (verse 2). You will recall that Samson was a Nazarite from birth (Judges 13, see notes). Furthermore, Paul seems to have made such a vow (Acts 18:18, see notes; Acts 21:20-26, see notes) when he attempted to demonstrate to the Jews in Jerusalem that he himself was a Law-abiding Jew.
Typically, the Nazarite vow was to be for a specified period of time. There were three distinct characteristics of those who had taken the Nazarite vow:
At the conclusion of the Nazarite vow, there was a special ritual involving several steps:
We see that later in Israel's history, they sinned against God by giving Nazarites wine to drink (Amos 2:11-12, see notes). Paul had taken the vow himself in Acts 18:18, 21 (see notes) while concluding his second missionary journey, and this is also the ceremony in which Paul participated in Acts 21:20-26 (see notes).
An official blessing (Numbers 6:22-27)
22 ¶ And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them:
24 “The LORD bless you and keep you;
25 The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
26 The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.” ’
27 ¶ “So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”
God gives the priests a verbal blessing to issue upon the people of Israel. You may have heard preachers conclude their services with a modified version of this blessing.