In this chapter, Moses is commanded by God to make sure the camp in which Israel was to live remains clean and free from any impurities, Numbers 5:1-3. We can imagine how important this would be when we consider just how many Israelites there were living in the camp, some estimate around three million.
There are three specific cases of uncleanliness mentioned: defiling skin, Numbers 5:2, which is probably leprosy, Leviticus 13:3, discharges from infection, Numbers 5:2 / Leviticus 15:2, and contact with a dead body, Numbers 5:2, except that of a close relative, Leviticus 21:1.
Anyone, male or female, who fell into these categories was to be put outside the camp until they were ceremonially clean, Numbers 5:3. Just as we have seen throughout the world concerning COVID-19, people who had the virus were isolated and quarantined for a certain time.
Those who had become unclean were to be put outside the camp to isolate and quarantine, in order to prevent a pandemic within the camp. In other words, because God lives in the camp, sin and its effects must be kept separated.
The Israelites did so, and they sent them outside the camp just as the LORD had instructed Moses, Numbers 5:4. The reason for these measures was to ensure that Israel remained a holy people.
Cleanliness and holiness are connected in the sense that if a person violates the laws concerning cleanliness, they would be violating the law of God, and so, be unholy before God.
In these verses, we read that God wants His people to be honest. Here, the text deals with someone who was sinning against another. This would include theft, Leviticus 5:14-6:7, or holding back from God anything which belongs to Him, Leviticus 6:1-7.
If anyone wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the LORD is guilty and must confess the sin they have committed, Numbers 5:5-7. Notice that if the person wanted to right the wrong they had done, they needed to repent. Their repentance was seen in their actions to right the wrong; it is seen in the actual doing of the restitution.
Restitution is commanded, Numbers 5:7, which implies this is commanded to ensure that peace will remain within Israel. If something was stolen, twenty per cent was to be added to the value of that which was stolen, with the restitution of that which was stolen, Numbers 5:7.
After the restitution was made, there was to be reconciliation with God by the person who made the restitution, this was done by the offering of a ram for atonement, Numbers 5:8.
In Leviticus 5:16, this sacrifice is called the ram of the trespass offering, stressing man’s offence, here it is called the ram of the atonement, Numbers 5:8, stressing God’s alienation.
Constable, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Trespasses against one’s neighbour, Leviticus 6:1-7, needed atonement because they constituted acts of ‘unfaithfulness’ to God, Numbers 5:6. The Israelites had to maintain proper horizontal relationships with their brethren to maintain a proper vertical relationship with Yahweh, Matthew 5:23-24.’
All the sacred contributions the Israelites bring to a priest will belong to him, and the sacred things belong to their owners, but what they give to the priest will belong to the priest, Numbers 5:9-10.
Because the aim of restitution is to maintain peace, when the Israelites offered a peace offering, the offeror was to have a piece of the meat returned to them, so that they and their family could have a fellowship meal with the LORD, Leviticus 3.
God not only wanted the camp to be holy and honest, but He also wanted the camp to be free from immortality. Please note that Numbers 5:11-15 aren’t dealing with the case of adultery because the penalty for committing that sin was death, Leviticus 20:10.
Here, the text implies that if a wife is behaving in such a way which causes any kind of suspicion, Numbers 5:12, but her husband couldn’t prove it, Numbers 5:13-14, then the husband was to take her to the priest for judgment, Numbers 5:15.
The point of this law is to prevent any wife from flirting with any other man except her husband. It’s interesting to note that Israel must have obeyed this law because there is no example in Scripture of this actually happening.
The doubting husband must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on his wife’s behalf, Numbers 5:15. He mustn’t pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing, Numbers 5:15.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following concerning the offering which was to be made.
‘Such meal-offerings were normally offered with oil and frankincense, but these were especially commanded to be omitted here. Why? The usual meal-offering was an occasion of joyful thanksgiving, but this was a different situation. The omission of these symbols of joy and thanksgiving, along with the designation of the water later as bitter water, pinpoints the fact of jealousy itself being an inglorious and bitter business. A tenth of an ephah was about seven pints.’
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The offering was to be of the cheapest and coarsest kind, barley, 2 Kings 7:1 / 2 Kings 7:16 / 2 Kings 7:18, representing the abused condition of the suspected woman. It was, like the sin-offering, Leviticus 5:11, to be made without oil and frankincense, the symbols of grace and acceptableness. The woman herself stood with head uncovered, Numbers 5:18, in token of her shame.’
We can only imagine the embarrassment and humiliation the wife had to go through whilst she stood in front of the priest and the LORD for judgment, Numbers 5:16. The priest is to take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water, Numbers 5:17.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following concerning the holy water.
‘This is significant as the only use of this expression in the whole Bible. The most likely source of this was the holy laver, which would have afforded an abundant water supply for the whole tabernacle. The notion that it came from some holy spring comes from the intention of making this whole chapter as pagan as possible. It is significant that the Septuagint (LXX) has pure running water here.’
Dust, Numbers 5:17, is an emblem of a state of condemnation, Genesis 3:14 / Micah 7:17. Notice that the wife’s hair was to be loosened, Numbers 5:18, which implies she is losing her dignity.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘To take off a woman’s veil, and expose her to the sight of men, would be considered a very great degradation in the East. To this St. Paul appears to allude, 1 Corinthians 11:5-6 / 1 Corinthians 11:10.’
After the priest has had the woman stand before the LORD, loosened her hair, and placed in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, he is to hold the bitter water that brings a curse, Numbers 5:19.
Next, the priest is to put the woman under oath and say to her, if no other man has had sexual relations with her and she hasn’t gone astray and become impure while married to her husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm her, Numbers 5:20.
However, if she has gone astray while married to her husband and she has made herself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than her husband, then the priest is to put the woman under this curse: may the LORD cause her to become a curse among her people when he makes her womb miscarry and her abdomen swell, Numbers 5:21.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following concerning her becoming a curse, Numbers 5:21.
‘Let thy name and punishment be remembered and mentioned as an example and terror to all others. As mentioned in Jeremiah 29:22-23.’
May this water that brings a curse enter her body so that her abdomen swells or her womb miscarries, Numbers 5:22 / 1 Corinthians 11:29. The wife was then to agree with the curse by saying ‘Amen, so be it’, Numbers 5:22.
The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water, Numbers 5:23. The woman is made to drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her, Numbers 5:24.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following concerning the drinking of the bitter water.
‘This was symbolised both her full acceptance of the hypothetical curse, Ezekiel 3:1-3 / Jeremiah 15:16 / Revelation 10:9, and its actual operation upon her if she should be guilty, Psalms 109:18.’
The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to the altar, Numbers 5:25. Next, the priest is to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar, and after that, he is to have the woman drink the water, Numbers 5:26.
If the woman was guilty of infidelity, the drinking of the bitter water would cause serious reactions in her female organs, but if she was innocent, the bitter water would cause her to bear children, Numbers 5:27-28.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Though the rabbis think that the priest put some bitter substance in the water, yet as nothing of the kind is intimated by Moses, we may consider the word as used here metaphorically for affliction, death. These waters were afflicting and deadly to her who drank them, being guilty. In this sense, afflictions are said to be bitter, Isaiah 38:17, so also is death, 1 Samuel 15:32 / Ecclesiastes 7:26.’
When matters of jealousy arose between a husband and a wife, it was possible that the husband was right concerning his suspicions about his wife, or he may be wrong because he was simply jealous, Numbers 5:29-30. If his wife had been adulterous, which meant her husband’s suspicions were right, then she would bear the consequences of her sin, Numbers 5:31.