Numbers 5:3

3 You will send away {both male and female}; you will send them {outside the camp}. They must not make unclean their camps where I [am] dwelling in their midst."

Numbers 5:3 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 5:3

Both male and female shall ye put out
Whether leprous, or profluvious, or defiled by touching a dead carcass: by this law, Miriam, when leprous, was put out of the camp, ( Numbers 12:14 Numbers 12:15 ) ;

without the camp shall ye put them;
which is repeated that it might be taken notice of, and punctually observed:

that they defile not their camps;
of which there were four, the camps of Judah, Reuben, Ephraim, and Dan:

in the midst whereof I dwell;
for the tabernacle, which was the dwelling place of the Lord, was in the midst of the camps of Israel; they were pitched on the four quarters of it; and this is a reason why impure persons were not suffered to be in the camp of Israel, because of the presence of God in the tabernacle so near them, to whom all, impurity is loathsome, and not to be permitted in his sight; and though this was ceremonial, it was typical of the uncleanness of sin, which is abominable to him, and renders persons unfit for communion with him, and with his people.

Numbers 5:3 In-Context

1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

2 "Command the {Israelites}: they must send everyone from the camp who is afflicted with a rash, everyone with a fluid discharge, and everyone unclean through [contact with] a corpse.

3 You will send away {both male and female}; you will send them {outside the camp}. They must not make unclean their camps where I [am] dwelling in their midst."

4 So the {Israelites} did so. They sent them away {outside the camp}; just as Yahweh spoke to Moses, so did the {Israelites}.

5 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "from male until female"
• [b]. Literally "to an outside place of the camp"