1And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying: 2Command the children of Israel that they send out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and everyone who is unclean because of the dead. 3You shall send out both male and female; you shall send them outside the camp, that they not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell. 4And the children of Israel did so, and sent them outside the camp; as Jehovah had spoken to Moses, so the children of Israel did. 5And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 6Speak to the children of Israel: When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit in unfaithfulness against Jehovah, and that soul is guilty, 7then they shall confess the sin which they have done. He shall make restitution for his trespass in full, add a fifth to it, and give it to the one he has wronged. 8But if the man has no relative to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution for the wrong shall go to Jehovah for the priest, besides the ram of the atonement with which atonement is made for him. 9Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which they bring to the priest, shall be his. 10And every man's holy things shall be his; whatever any man gives to the priest shall be his. 11And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 12Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: If any man's wife turns aside and transgresses in unfaithfulness toward him, 13and a man has lain with her with the seed of intercourse, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and it is concealed that she has been defiled, and there was no witness against her, nor has she been caught; 14if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes jealous of his wife, who has been defiled; or if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes jealous of his wife, although she has not been defiled; 15then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. He shall bring the offering 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. 16And the priest shall bring her near, and make her stand before Jehovah. 17The 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. 18And the priest shall make the woman stand before Jehovah, uncover the woman's head, and put the offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And in the priest's hand shall be the bitter water that brings a curse. 19And the priest shall charge her under oath, and say to the woman, If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while under your husband, be free from this bitter water that brings a curse. 20But if you have turned aside while under your husband, and if you have been defiled and some man besides your husband has lain with you; 21then the priest shall charge the woman under the oath of the curse, and he shall say to the woman: Jehovah make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Jehovah makes your thigh waste away and your belly swell; 22and this water that causes the curse shall go into your stomach, and make your belly swell and your thigh waste away. And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. 23And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall wipe them off into the bitter water. 24And he shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her to become bitter. 25And the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman's hand, shall wave the offering before Jehovah, and bring it to the altar; 26and the priest shall take a handful of the offering, as its memorial portion, burn it on the altar with smoke, and afterward make the woman drink the water. 27When he has made her drink the water, then it shall be, if she has been defiled and transgressed in unfaithfulness toward her husband, that the water that brings a curse shall enter into her and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, her thigh shall waste away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. 28But if the woman has not been defiled, and is pure, then she shall be free and shall conceive children. 29This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, while under her husband, turns aside and has been defiled; 30or when the spirit of jealousy comes upon a man, and he becomes jealous of his wife; then he shall make the woman stand before Jehovah, and the priest shall pass all this law upon her. 31And the man shall be free from iniquity, but 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.