Numbers 5:1-10

Instructions about purity in the camp

1 The LORD spoke to Moses:

2 Command the Israelites to send out from the camp anyone with a skin disease, an oozing discharge, or who has become unclean from contact with a corpse.

3 You must send out both male and female. You must send them outside the camp so that they will not make their camp, where I live among them, unclean.

4 The Israelites did so and sent them outside the camp. The Israelites did just what the LORD said to Moses.

5 The LORD spoke to Moses:

6 Tell the Israelites: When a man or a woman commits any sin against anyone else, thus breaking faith with the LORD, that person becomes guilty.

7 Such persons will confess the sin they have done. Each will make payment for his guilt, add one-fifth more, and give it to the injured party.

8 If the person has no close relative to whom the payment can be made, then the compensation payment will go to the LORD for the priest. This is in addition to the ram of reconciliation by which the guilty party himself is reconciled.

9 Any gift offering from all the sacred donations that the Israelites offer will be the property of the priest.

10 The sacred donations belong to each person alone; whatever anyone gives to the priest will be his.

Numbers 5:1-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 5

This chapter contains a repetition of some former laws, concerning putting unclean persons out of the camp, Nu 5:1-4; making restitution in case of trespass against another, Nu 5:5-8; and of giving the offering of all holy things and all hallowed things to the priests, Nu 5:9,10; and a new law concerning jealousy, in a man, of his wife, Nu 5:11-14; when she was to be brought to the priest, and various rites and ceremonies to be used, Nu 5:15-23; who was to give her bitter water as a trial of her chastity, which, if guilty, would have a strange effect upon her, and make her accursed, but if not, would not affect her, and she would be free and happy, Nu 5:24-31.