Commentaria in Numeros
Chapter 5. Synopsis of the Chapter
God commands the unclean to be cast out of the camp. Secondly, verse 12, he lays down the law of jealousy, by which husbands put to the test wives suspected of adultery by means of the accursed waters.
1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2. Command the children of Israel that they cast out of the camp every leper, and whosoever hath an issue of seed, and is defiled by the dead. 3. Whether it be man or woman, cast ye them out of the camp, lest they defile it when I shall dwell with you. 4. And the children of Israel did so, and they cast them forth without the camp, as the Lord had spoken to Moses. 5. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 6. Say to the children of Israel: When a man or woman shall have committed any of all the sins that men are wont to commit, and by negligence shall have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and offended, 7. they shall confess their sin, and restore the principal itself, and the fifth part over and above, to him against whom they have sinned. 8. But if there be no one to receive it, they shall give it to the Lord, and it shall be the priest’s, besides the ram that is offered for expiation, to be a propitiatory victim. 9. All the firstfruits also, which the children of Israel offer, belong to the priest; 10. and whatsoever is offered in the Sanctuary by every one, and is delivered into the hands of the priest, shall be his.
11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 12. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The man whose wife has gone astray, and, despising her husband, 13. has slept with another man, and the husband cannot find it out, but the adultery is secret, and cannot be proved by witnesses, because she was not found in the very act: 14. if the spirit of jealousy stir up the husband against his wife, who either is defiled, or is charged with false suspicion, 15. he shall bring her to the priest, and shall offer an oblation for her, the tenth part of a measure of barley meal: he shall not pour oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon, because it is a sacrifice of jealousy, and an oblation searching out adultery. 16. The priest therefore shall offer it, and set it before the Lord: 17. and he shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and shall cast a little earth of the pavement of the tabernacle into it. 18. And when the woman shall stand before the Lord, he shall uncover her head, and shall put on her hands the sacrifice of remembrance, and the oblation of jealousy: and he himself shall hold the most bitter waters, upon which he hath heaped the curses with execration, 19. and he shall adjure her, and say: If another man hath not slept with thee, and if thou be not defiled by forsaking thy husband’s bed, these most bitter waters, upon which I have heaped the curses, shall not hurt thee.
20. But if thou hast gone aside from thy husband, and art defiled, and hast lain with another man, 21. thou shalt be subject to these maledictions: The Lord make thee a curse, and an example for all among his people; may he make thy thigh to rot, and may thy belly swell and burst. 22. Let the cursed waters enter into thy belly, and thy womb swell, and thy thigh rot. And the woman shall answer: Amen, amen. 23. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and shall wash them out with the most bitter waters upon which he heaped the curses, 24. and he shall give them her to drink. And when she hath drunk them, 25. the priest shall take from her hand the sacrifice of jealousy, and shall elevate it before the Lord, and lay it upon the altar; yet so that first 26. he take a handful of the sacrifice of that which is offered, and burn it upon the altar, and so give the most bitter waters to the woman to drink. 27. And when she hath drunk them, if she be defiled and, having despised her husband, be guilty of adultery, the waters of malediction shall pass through her, and her belly swelling, her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse, and an example to all the people.
28. But if she be not defiled, she shall be free from harm, and shall bear children. 29. This is the law of jealousy. If a woman go aside from her husband, and be defiled, 30. and the husband, stirred up by the spirit of jealousy, bring her before the Lord, and the priest do to her according to all things that are here written; 31. the husband shall be blameless, and she shall bear her iniquity.
Verse 2. COMMAND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL THAT THEY CAST OUT OF THE CAMP EVERY LEPER—in the Hebrew the reason is added: because I, namely God, who am most pure, dwell in the midst of you. I will therefore have my camp clean, and lepers and other unclean persons cast out of it. There are cast out here, then, outside the camp, first, lepers; second, those who suffered a flow of seed; third, those defiled by the dead, that is, who by touching a carcass, or a human corpse, had contracted legal pollution, that is uncleanness; of whom the first two were exiled from the camp until they were healed: for the healed, after the purification prescribed in Leviticus 14 and 15 (the sacrifices there prescribed excepted, for these were not made in the desert), were received into the camp; but the third purified themselves on certain days, and after the seventh day returned to the camp without any other ceremony, as is plain from Numbers 19:11 and 12.
Note: By the camp is here understood the assembly of the whole people, and not of the Levites only, as is plain. Wherefore Lyranus wrongly says, from Rabbi Solomon: Lepers were cast out of the camp of the people, those with a flow of seed out of the camp of the Levites, those defiled by the dead out of the camp of the Deity, that is out of the tabernacle, which was as it were the house of God: for all these were kept away not only from the tabernacle but also from the whole camp of the people.
Note: The moral and judicial precepts were observed by the Hebrews in the desert as in the land of Canaan; but most of the ceremonial were not observed in the desert, as is plain of circumcision, Josue 5, and of the feasts, at least as to the sacrifices prescribed for each feast: for as to cessation from work, the feasts which required it were observed in the desert, unless the camp was to be moved, as is plain of the Sabbath: for he who violated it, gathering sticks on the Sabbath, was stoned, Numbers 15:35. In like manner in the desert the payment of the priestly dues, namely of firstfruits and tithes, was not observed; nor the redemption of the firstborn, after that first one made in Sinai, Numbers 3:46. And rightly. For in the desert the priests did not discharge their priestly office, which was to sacrifice, and therefore did not earn these dues as their stipend. Again, they did not need them, since all lived on manna: so Abulensis. Except here some ceremonial things: for the unclean in the desert were cleansed after the purifications prescribed, as I said a little before. Again, the loaves of proposition had to be set on the table before the Lord there, as is plain from chapter 4, verse 7. The sacred fire moreover had to be constantly fed, as is plain from Leviticus chapter
Verse 6. WHEN A MAN OR WOMAN SHALL HAVE COMMITTED ANY OF ALL THE SINS THAT MEN ARE WONT TO COMMIT—namely when they have done some injury to a neighbour, a kind of sin into which men are wont to fall.
Verse 7. THEY SHALL CONFESS THEIR SIN (note here the use, indeed the precept, of particular confession in the old law), AND RESTORE THE PRINCIPAL ITSELF.—In Hebrew, “they shall restore the trespass in its head,” that is, they shall restore the principal itself, the very thing they took. For in this case of injuries and injustice restitution is prescribed by this law and by the law of nature. See Lelaris on 6:3, where the same case is explained.