Defilement, Restitution, and a Disputed Accusation

The laws that follow sit between the arranging of the camp and its departure. Having placed every tribe around the tabernacle, the Book of Numbers turns at once to who may remain inside that arrangement.

Three conditions are named, each with its own chapter elsewhere: skin disease (Leviticus 13), bodily discharges (Leviticus 15), and contact with a corpse (Numbers 19). The “leper” is tsarua, a sufferer from the skin conditions of Leviticus, not necessarily what is now called leprosy. The rabbis graded the exclusion, with the corpse-defiled barred only from the sanctuary area.

“In the midst whereof I dwell” uses shakhen, the verb from which mishkan, tabernacle, is formed, and from which later Jewish writers drew Shekinah, the dwelling presence. “Their camps” is plural: each of the four divisions is itself a place where God lives among them.

The rule was applied to Moses’ own sister in 12:14–15, when Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days and the people did not move until she was brought back.

A second law opens, turning from uncleanness to wrongdoing. The formula is identical, but the subject is now a debt between neighbours.

“Any sin that men commit” is literally “any of the sins of man”, wrongs done to other people. Yet the wrong is also ma’al “against the LORD”, a breach of faith, the word Leviticus 5:15 uses for misusing holy things. To cheat a neighbour is to trespass against God.

Leviticus 6:1–7 had laid down restitution with a fifth added; Numbers adds the requirement to confess aloud. “The principal” is rosh, head, the capital sum, just as a census “sum” in 1:2 was the lifting of heads.

“Kinsman” is go’el, the redeemer, the next of kin who would receive repayment if the injured man had died. Since nearly every Israelite had some relative, the rabbis applied the verse to a proselyte who died without heirs. The ram of atonement is the guilt offering of Leviticus 6:6.

“Offering” here is terumah, a portion lifted off from something larger, often called the heave offering. Whatever is brought to a particular priest becomes that priest’s own.

“Shall be his” is said three times in two verses, and the pronoun is ambiguous. One reading makes the holy gifts belong to the donor until given, so he may choose the priest; another gives them outright to whichever priest receives them.

The third law is the longest in the chapter and is introduced with the same short formula as the first two.

“Go aside” is satah, to turn off a road. From it the rabbis named this whole procedure sotah, the woman who strays, and gave the name to a tractate of the Mishnah. “Commit a trespass” uses ma’al again, the breach of faith of verse 6, now against a husband.

Four clauses stack up the hiddenness: hid from his eyes, kept close, no witness, not taken in the act. “Taken with the manner” is an old English legal phrase, “taken with the mainour”, caught with the stolen goods in hand, red-handed.

“The spirit of jealousy” is ruach qin’ah, a passion that comes upon a man from outside himself. The same root, qana, is used of God in the second commandment, “I the LORD thy God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5).

A tenth of an ephah was about two litres, the same amount as the poorest person’s sin offering in Leviticus 5:11, which also went without oil or frankincense. Barley was the grain of fodder and of the poor, where most grain offerings were of fine wheat flour.

“Before the LORD” places her at the entrance of the tent, in the court near the altar. When the rite was later practised at the temple, the Mishnah put it at the eastern Nicanor gate.

The holy water was probably drawn from the bronze laver of Exodus 30:18. The vessel is plain earthenware, which Leviticus 6:28 required to be broken after holy use. The dust is from the floor of the sanctuary itself.

“Uncover” is para, to loosen or let down her hair, the sign required of a person with skin disease in Leviticus 13:45. Her hands hold the barley, the priest’s hold the water. “Bitter water that causeth the curse” is an alliteration in Hebrew, mei hammarim ham’ararim.

The oath gives the innocent outcome first. “Instead of thy husband” is literally “under thy husband”, tachat ishekh, meaning while under his authority as his wife.

The Hebrew sentence breaks off unfinished after the condition, and verse 21 has to begin again with a fresh introduction. The grammar hesitates before speaking the curse.

To be made “a curse and an oath among thy people” means her name would become a byword in other people’s curses, “may you be like her”. Jeremiah 29:22 uses the names of two false prophets roasted by Babylon exactly that way.

“Amen, amen” comes from the accused woman herself, the word doubled. Amen means “so be it”, from a root meaning firm or sure. The Mishnah explained the doubling as one amen for the curse and one for the oath, or one for this man and one for any other.

“Blot them out” is machah, the verb Moses used in Exodus 32:32: “blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book”. The written curse contained the divine name, and the Talmud remarked that God allows his own name to be dissolved in water to make peace between husband and wife.

The drinking is mentioned here before the offering of verses 25–26, and the Mishnah debated which came first. Verse 26 settles it with “afterward”, so this verse is best taken as anticipating the result.

Waving (tenufah) moves the offering toward the altar and back, presenting it to the LORD before any of it is burned. The barley finally leaves the woman’s hands at this point.

The handful is the qomets of Leviticus 2:2, the memorial portion burned on the altar. The same word “memorial” (azkarah) has named this offering since verse 15: it brings something to remembrance.

The consequences spoken in verse 21 are now stated as what will occur. The Bible never records this rite being carried out; the Mishnah says it was abolished by Johanan ben Zakkai in the first century, when unfaithfulness had become too common for it to mean anything.

“Conceive seed” is the verb of Leviticus 12:2, zara, to bear offspring. The Talmud took it as a reward as well as an acquittal: a childless woman found innocent would be given children.

“This is the law of” is the closing formula Leviticus uses for its sacrifice and purity laws (Leviticus 6:9, 7:1, 13:59). “Jealousies” is plural, perhaps for the several kinds of suspicion it covers.

“Execute upon her all this law” is literally “do to her all this torah”. The procedure must be followed entire; the priest may not shorten or improvise it.

Hosea 4:14 later answers this imbalance from inside Israel’s own prophets: “I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom… for themselves are separated with whores.” The prophet names the men’s part that this verse leaves unaddressed.