Numbers
Summary
Numbers Chapter 5 addresses the necessity of communal purity and justice. It establishes laws for removing diseased and unclean persons from the camp to maintain the presence of God. It also includes instructions for restitution in cases of fraud or dishonesty, emphasizing that a crime against another person is also a crime against God. The chapter concludes with the unique and solemn process for a "spirit of jealousy", providing a way to resolve accusations of marital unfaithfulness. These laws underscored that pure worship must be supported by a pure and just society.
The LORD said to Moses:
"Command the Israelites to remove from the camp anyone who has a contagious skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, and anyone who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body.
Remove both men and women; send them outside the camp so they will not defile the place where I dwell among them."
The Israelites did this; they sent them outside the camp, just as the LORD had told Moses.
The LORD said to Moses:
"Say to the Israelites: 'When a man or woman wrongs another person in any way and so is unfaithful to the LORD, that person is guilty.
They must confess the sin they have committed and make full restitution for the wrong they have done, adding twenty per cent to the value and giving it to the person they wronged.
But if that person has no close relative to receive the restitution, the restitution belongs to the LORD and must be given to the priest, along with the ram used for atonement.
All the sacred gifts the Israelites bring to the priest will belong to him.
Each person’s sacred gifts are their own, but whatever anyone gives to the priest belongs to the priest.'"
The LORD said to Moses:
"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'Suppose a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him,
and another man has sexual relations with her, but it is hidden from her husband and there is no witness against her, and she was not caught in the act.
If a spirit of jealousy comes over the husband and he suspects his wife, whether she is actually defiled or not,
he must take his wife to the priest. He must also bring an offering of two pounds of barley flour for her. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, an offering of memorial to bring wrongdoing to light.
The priest shall bring her forward and have her stand before the LORD.
Then the priest shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the Tabernacle floor into the water.
After the priest has the woman stand before the LORD, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the offering of memorial, the grain offering for jealousy. The priest himself will hold the bitter water that brings a curse.
Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, "If no other man has had relations with you and you have not gone astray and become defiled while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you.
But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and have defiled yourself by having relations with a man other than your husband",
here the priest is to put the woman under the curse of the oath, "may the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people by making your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell.
May this water that brings a curse enter your body and cause your abdomen to swell and your womb to miscarry." Then the woman shall say, "Amen, Amen."
The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water.
He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that causes suffering will enter her.
The priest is to take the grain offering for jealousy from her hand, wave it before the LORD, and bring it to the altar.
He shall take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial portion and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to make the woman drink the water.
If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she drinks the water that brings a curse, it will cause her bitter suffering; her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse among her people.
But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she will be unharmed and will still be able to have children.
This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and defiles herself while married to her husband,
or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he suspects his wife. The priest shall have her stand before the LORD and apply this entire law to her.
The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.'"