1And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 2Command the sons of Israel, and they shall send every leper out of the camp, and everyone with an issue, and everyone defiled by a dead body. 3You shall send out from male and female. You shall send them to the outside of the camp. And they shall not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell. 4And the sons of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp. As Jehovah spoke to Moses, so the sons of Israel did. 5And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 6Speak to the sons of Israel, man or woman, when they commit any of the sins of man, by committing a trespass against Jehovah, and that person is guilty, 7then they shall confess their sin which they have done. And he shall make restitution for his guilt in full, and add its fifth to it, and shall give it to him against whom he has been guilty. 8And if a man has no kinsman to whom the guilt may be restored, the guilt which is restored shall be Jehovah's, a priest's, besides the ram of the atonement by which he makes atonement for him. 9And every heave offering of all the holy things of the sons of Israel which they bring to the priest shall be his. 10And any man's dedicated things shall become his, that which any man gives to the priest becomes his. 11And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 12Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, When any man's wife goes astray, and has committed a trespass against him, 13and a man lies with her with semen, and it has been hidden from her husband's eyes, and is kept hidden, and she is defiled, and there is no other witness against her, and she has not been caught; 14and a spirit of jealousy has passed over him, and he has become jealous of his wife, and she has been defiled. Or, a spirit of jealousy has passed over him, and he has become jealous of his wife, and she has not become defiled: 15then the man shall bring his wife in to the priest, and he shall bring in her offering for her, a tenth of an ephah of barley meal. He shall not pour oil on it, nor shall he put frankincense on it, for it is a food offering of jealousy, a food offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance. 16And the priest shall bring her near, and shall cause her to stand before Jehovah. 17And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel. And the priest shall take of the dust which is on the tabernacle floor, and shall put it into the water. 18And the priest shall cause the woman to stand before Jehovah, and shall uncover the woman's head, and shall give into her hand the food offering of memorial; it is a food offering of jealousy; and in the priest's hand shall be the bitter waters which cause the curse. 19And the priest shall cause her to swear and shall say to the woman, If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to impurity under your husband, be free from these bitter waters which cause the curse. 20And you, if you have turned aside under your husband, and if you have been defiled, and any man besides your husband has given his semen to you, 21then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say to the woman: Jehovah shall make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Jehovah makes your thigh to fall away, and your belly to swell. 22And these waters which cause the curse shall go into your bowels to cause the belly to swell, and the thigh to fall. And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. 23And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and shall blot them with the bitter waters. 24And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter waters which cause the curse. And the waters which cause the curse shall enter into her for bitter things. 25And the priest shall take the food offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the food offering before Jehovah, and shall bring it near to the altar. 26And the priest shall take a handful of the food offering, its memorial, and shall burn it as incense on the altar. And afterward he shall cause the woman to drink the water. 27And when he shall cause her to drink the water, then it shall be, if she has been defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, the waters which cause the curse shall go into her for bitter things; and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse in the midst of her people. 28And if the woman has not been defiled, and is pure, then she shall be clean and shall conceive seed. 29This is the law of jealousies when a wife turns aside under her husband, and has been defiled; 30or when a spirit of jealousy passes over a man, and he has become jealous of his wife, then he shall cause the woman to stand before Jehovah, and the priest shall do to her all this law; 31and the man shall be clean from sin, and the woman shall bear her iniquity.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 2 THE UNCLEAN TO BE REMOVED OUT OF THE CAMP. (
Num 5:1-
Num 5:4)
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 (Lev. 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" [
Lev 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.
6 RESTITUTION ENJOINED. (
Num 5:5-
Num 5:10)
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 (
Acts 5:3-
Acts 5:4).
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
Lev 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
Exod 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 every offering . . . shall be his--Whatever was given in this way, or otherwise, as by freewill offerings, irrevocably belonged to the priest.
12 THE TRIAL OF JEALOUSY. (Num. 5:11-31)
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 (
Lev 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 (
Exod 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 the priest shall take holy water--Water from the laver, which was to be mixed with dust--an emblem of vileness and misery (
Gen 3:14;
Ps 22:15).
in an earthen vessel--This fragile ware was chosen because, after being used, it was broken in pieces (
Lev 6:28;
Lev 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 (
1Cor 11:7) --the bitter potion being put into her hands preparatory to an appeal to God--the solemn adjuration of the priest (
Num 5:19-
Num 5:22), 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 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.