Numbers 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

[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.