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Matthew Henry |
N U M B E R S
CHAP. V.
In this chapter we have,
I. An order, pursuant to the laws already made, for the removing of the
unclean out of the camp,
II. A repetition of the laws concerning restitution, in case of wrong
done to a neighbour
(ver. 5-8),
and concerning the appropriating of the hallowed things to the priests,
III. A new law made concerning the trial of a wife suspected of
adultery, by the waters of jealousy,
ver. 11, &c.
| The Unclean to Be Removed. | B. C. 1490. |
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1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp
every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is
defiled by the dead:
3 Both male and female shall ye put out, without the camp shall
ye put them; that they defile not their camps, in the midst
whereof I dwell.
4 And the children of Israel did so, and put them out without
the camp: as the LORD spake unto Moses, so did the children of
Israel.
5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
6 Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall
commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the
LORD, and that person be guilty;
7 Then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and
he shall recompense his trespass with the principal thereof, and
add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him
against whom he hath trespassed.
8 But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the trespass
unto, let the trespass be recompensed unto the LORD, even to
the priest; beside the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement
shall be made for him.
9 And every offering of all the holy things of the children of
Israel, which they bring unto the priest, shall be his.
10 And every man’s hallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any
man giveth the priest, it shall be his.
Here is,
I. A command for the purifying of the camp, by turning out from within
its lines all those that were ceremonially unclean, by issues,
leprosies, or the touch of dead bodies, until they were cleansed
according to the law,
1. These orders are executed immediately,
v. 4.
(1.) The camp was now newly-modelled and put in order, and therefore,
to complete the reformation of it, it is next to be cleansed. Note, The
purity of the church must be as carefully consulted and preserved as
the peace and order of it. It is requisite, not only that every
Israelite be confined to his own standard, but that every polluted
Israelite be separated from it. The wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable.
(2.) God’s tabernacle was now fixed in the midst of their camp, and
therefore they must be careful to keep it clean. Note, The greater
profession of religion any house or family make the more they are
obliged to put away iniquity far from their tabernacle,
Job xxii. 23.
The person, the place, in the midst of which God dwells, must
not be defiled; for, if it be, he will be affronted, offended, and
provoked to withdraw,
2. This expulsion of the unclean out of the camp was to signify,
(1.) What the governors of the church ought to do: they must
separate between the precious and the vile, and purge out
scandalous persons, as old leaven
lest others should be infected and defiled,
It is for the glory of Christ and the edification of his church that
those who are openly and incorrigibly profane and vicious should be put
out and kept from Christian communion till they repent.
(2.) What God himself will do in the great day: he will thoroughly
purge his floor, and gather out of his kingdom all things that
offend. As here the unclean were shut out of the camp, so into the
new Jerusalem no unclean thing shall enter,
Rev. xxi. 27.
II. A law concerning restitution, in case of wrong done to a neighbour.
It is called a sin that men commit
(v. 6),
because it is common among men; a sin of man, that is, a sin
against man, so it is thought it should be translated and
understood. If a man overreach or defraud his brother in any matter, it
is to be looked upon as a trespass against the Lord, who is the
protector of right, the punisher of wrong, and who strictly charges and
commands us to do justly. Now what is to be done when a man’s awakened
conscience charges him with guilt of this kind, and brings it to his
remembrance though done long ago?
1. He must confess his sin, confess it to God, confess it to his
neighbour, and so take shame to himself. If he have denied it before,
though it go against the grain to own himself in a lie, yet he must do
it; because his heart was hardened he denied it, therefore he has no
other way of making it appear that his heart is now softened but by
confessing it.
2. He must bring a sacrifice, a ram of atonement,
v. 8.
Satisfaction must be made for the offence done to God, whose law is
broken, as well as for the loss sustained by our neighbour; restitution
in this case is not sufficient without faith and repentance.
3. Yet the sacrifices would not be accepted till full amends were made
to the party wronged, not only the principal, but a fifth part added to
it,
v. 7.
It is certain that while that which is got by injustice is knowingly
retained in the hands the guilt of the injustice remains upon the
conscience, and is not purged by sacrifice nor offering, prayers not
tears, for it is one and the same continued act of sin persisted in.
This law we had before
(Lev. vi. 4),
and it is here added that if the party wronged was dead, and he had no
near kinsman who was entitled to the debt, or if it was any way
uncertain to whom the restitution should be made, this should not serve
for an excuse to detain what was unjustly gotten; to whomsoever it
pertained, it was certainly none of his that got it by sin, and
therefore it must be given to the priest,
v. 8.
If there were any that could make out a title to it, it must not be
given to the priest (God hates robbery for burnt-offerings); but, if
there were not, then it lapsed to the great Lord (ob defectum
sanguinis–for want of issue), and the priests were his receivers.
Note, Some work of piety or charity is a piece of necessary justice to
be done by those who are conscience to themselves that they have done
wrong, but know not how otherwise to make restitution; what is not our
property will never be our profit.
III. A general rule concerning hallowed things given upon this
occasion, that, whatever was given to the priest, his it shall
be,
v. 9, 10.
1. He that gave it was not to receive his gift again upon any pretence
whatsoever. This law ratifies and confirms all grants for pious uses,
that people might not give things to the priests in a fit of zeal, and
then recall them in a fit of vexation.
2. The other priests should not come in sharers with that priest who
then officiated, and to whom the hallowed thing, whatever it was, was
given. Let him that was most ready and diligent in attending fare the
better for it: if he do the work, let him have the pay, and much good
may it do him.
| The Bitter Water of Jealousy. | B. C. 1490. |
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11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
12 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any
man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,
13 And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes
of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there
be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the
manner;
14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous
of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy
come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not
defiled:
15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he
shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of
barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense
thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of
memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the
LORD:
17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel;
and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest
shall take, and put it into the water:
18 And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and
uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her
hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall
have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:
19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the
woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone
aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be
thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:
20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy
husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee
beside thine husband:
21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of
cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make
thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth
make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy
bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And
the woman shall say, Amen, amen.
23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he
shall blot them out with the bitter water:
24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that
causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall
enter into her, and become bitter.
25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the
woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and
offer it upon the altar:
26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even
the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward
shall cause the woman to drink the water.
27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall
come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass
against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall
enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell,
and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her
people.
28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she
shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
29 This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to
another instead of her husband, and is defiled;
30 Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be
jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the LORD,
and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.
31 Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this
woman shall bear her iniquity.
We have here the law concerning the solemn trial of a wife whose
husband was jealous of her. Observe,
I. What was the case supposed: That a man had some reason to suspect
his wife to have committed adultery,
Here,
1. The sin of adultery is justly represented as an exceedingly sinful
sin; it is going aside from God and virtue, and the good way,
It is committing a trespass against the husband, robbing him of his
honour, alienating his right, introducing a spurious breed into his
family to share with his children in his estate, and violating her
covenant with him. It is being defiled; for nothing pollutes the mind
and conscience more than this sin does.
2. It is supposed to be a sin which great care is taken by the sinners
to conceal, which there is no witness of. The eye of the adulterer
waits for the twilight,
Job xxiv. 15.
And the adulteress takes her opportunity when the good man is not at
home,
Prov. vii. 19.
It would not covet to be secret if it were not shameful; and the devil
who draws sinners to this sin teaches them how to cover it.
3. The spirit of jealousy is supposed to come upon the husband,
of which Solomon says, It is the rage of a man
(Prov. vi. 34),
and that it is cruel as the grave,
Cant. viii. 6.
4. “Yet” (say the Jewish writers) “he must make it appear that he has
some just cause for the suspicion.” The rule they give is, “If the
husband have said unto his wife before witnesses, ‘Be not thou in
secret with such a man;’ and, notwithstanding that admonition, it is
afterwards proved that she was in secret with that man, though her
father or her brother, then he may compel her to drink the bitter
water.” But the law here does not tie him to that particular method of
proving the just cause of his suspicion; it might be otherwise proved.
In case it could be proved that she had committed adultery, she was to
be put to death
(Lev. xx. 10);
but, if it was uncertain, then this law took place. Hence,
(1.) Let all wives be admonished not to give any the least occasion for
the suspicion of their chastity; it is not enough that they abstain
from the evil of uncleanness, but they must abstain from all appearance
of it, from every thing that looks like it, or leads to it, or may give
the least umbrage to jealousy; for how great a matter may a
little fire kindle!
(2.) Let all husbands be admonished not to entertain any causeless or
unjust suspicions of their wives. If charity in general, much more
conjugal affection, teaches to think no evil,
1 Cor. xiii. 5.
It is the happiness of the virtuous woman that the heart of her
husband does safely trust in her,
Prov. xxxi. 11.
II. What was the course prescribed in this case, that, if the suspected
wife was innocent, she might not continue under the reproach and
uneasiness of her husband’s jealousy, and, if guilty, her sin might
find her out, and others might hear, and fear, and take warning.
1. The process of the trial must be thus:–
(1.) Her husband must bring her to the priest, with the
witnesses that could prove the ground of his suspicion, and desire that
she might be put upon her trial. The Jews say that the priest was first
to endeavour to persuade her to confess the truth, saying to this
purport, “Dear daughter, perhaps thou wast overtaken by drinking wine,
or wast carried away by the heat of youth or the examples of bad
neighbours; come, confess the truth, for the sake of his great name
which is described in the most sacred ceremony, and do not let it be
blotted out with the bitter water.” If she confessed, saying, “I am
defiled,” she was not put to death, but was divorced and lost her
dowry; if she said, “I am pure,” then they proceeded.
(2.) He must bring a coarse offering of barley-meal, without oil or
frankincense, agreeably to the present afflicted state of his family;
for a great affliction it was either to have cause to be jealous or to
be jealous without cause. It is an offering of memorial, to
signify that what was to be done was intended as a religious appeal to
the omniscience and justice of God.
(3.) The priest was to prepare the water of jealousy, the holy water
out of the laver at which the priests were to wash when they
ministered; this must be brought in an earthen vessel,
containing (they say) about a pint; and it must be an earthen
vessel, because the coarser and plainer every thing was the more
agreeable it was to the occasion. Dust must be put into the
water, to signify the reproach she lay under, and the shame she ought
to take to herself, putting her mouth in the dust; but dust from the
floor of the tabernacle, to put an honour upon every thing that
pertained to the place God had chosen to put his name there, and to
keep up in the people a reverence for it; see
(4.) The woman was to be set before the Lord, at the east gate
of the temple-court (say the Jews), and her head was to be uncovered,
in token of her sorrowful condition; and there she stood for a
spectacle to the world, that other women might learn not to do after
her lewdness,
Ezek. xxiii. 48.
Only the Jews say, “Her own servants were not to be present, that she
might not seem vile in their sight, who were to give honour to her; her
husband also must be dismissed.”
(5.) The priest was to adjure her to tell the truth, and to denounce
the curse of God against her if she were guilty, and to declare what
would be the effect of her drinking the water of jealousy,
He must assure her that, if she were innocent, the water would do her
no harm,
None need fear the curse of the law if they have not broken the
commands of the law. But, if she were guilty, this water would be
poison to her, it would make her belly to swell and her thigh to
rot, and she should be a curse or abomination among her people,
To this she must say, Amen, as Israel must do to the curses
pronounced on mount Ebal,
Some think the Amen, being doubled, respects both parts of the
adjuration, both that which freed her if innocent and that which
condemned her if guilty. No woman, if she were guilty, could say
Amen to this adjuration, and drink the water upon it, unless she
disbelieved the truth of God or defied his justice, and had come to
such a pitch of impudence and hard-heartedness in sin as to challenge
God Almighty to do his worst, and choose rather to venture upon his
curse than to give him glory by making confession; thus has whoredom
taken away the heart.
(6.) The priest was to write this curse in a scrip or scroll o
parchment, verbatim–word for word, as he had expressed it, and
then to wipe or scrape out what he had written into the water
(v. 23),
to signify that it was that curse which impregnated the water, and gave
it its strength to effect what was intended. It signified that, if she
were innocent, the curse should be blotted out and never appear against
her, as it is written,
I am he that blotteth out thy transgression, and
Blot out my iniquities; but that, if she were guilty, the curse,
as it was written, being infused into the water, would enter into her
bowels with the water, even like oil into her bones
(Ps. cix. 18),
as we read of a curse entering into a house,
(7.) The woman must then drink the water
(v. 24);
it is called the bitter water, some think because they put
wormwood in it to make it bitter, or rather because it caused the
curse. Thus sin is called an evil thing and a bitter for the
same reason, because it causeth the curse,
Jer. ii. 19.
If she had been guilty (and otherwise it did not cause the curse), she
was made to know that though her stolen waters had been sweet, and her
bread eaten in secret pleasant, yet the end was bitter as
wormwood,
Prov. ix. 17,
and
Let all that meddle with forbidden pleasures know that they will be
bitterness in the latter end. The Jews say that if, upon denouncing the
curse, the woman was so terrified that she durst not drink the water,
but confessed she was defiled, the priest flung down the water, and
cast her offering among the ashes, and she was divorced without dowry:
if she confessed not, and yet would not drink, they forced her to it;
and, if she was ready to throw it up again, they hastened her away,
that she might not pollute the holy place.
(8.) Before she drank the water, the jealousy-offering was waved and
offered upon the altar
(v. 25, 26);
a handful of it was burnt for a memorial, and the remainder of it eaten
by the priest, unless the husband was a priest, and then it was
scattered among the ashes. This offering in the midst of the
transaction signified that the whole was an appeal to God, as a God
that knows all things, and from whom no secret is hid.
(9.) All things being thus performed according to the law, they were to
wait the issue. The water, with a little dust put into it, and the
scrapings of a written parchment, had no natural tendency at all to do
either good or hurt; but if God was thus appealed to in the way of an
instituted ordinance, though otherwise the innocent might have
continued under suspicion and the guilty undiscovered, yet God would so
far own his own institution as that in a little time, by the miraculous
operation of Providence, the innocency of the innocent should be
cleared, and the sin of the guilty should find them out.
[1.] If the suspected woman was really guilty, the water she drank
would be poison to her
(v. 27),
her belly would swell and her thigh rot by a vile disease for vile
deserts, and she would mourn at the last when her flesh and body
were consumed,
Prov. v. 11.
Bishop Patrick says, from some of the Jewish writers, that the effect
of these waters appeared immediately, she grew pale, and her eyes ready
to start out of her head. Dr. Lightfoot says that sometimes it appeared
not for two or three years, but she bore no children, was sickly,
languished, and rotted at last; it is probable that some indications
appeared immediately. The rabbin say that the adulterer also died in
the same day and hour that the adulteress did, and in the same manner
too, that he belly swelled, and his secret parts rotted: a disease
perhaps not much unlike that which in these latter ages the avenging
hand of a righteous God has made the scourge of uncleanness, and with
which whores and whoremongers infect, and plague, and ruin one another,
since they escape punishment from men. The Jewish doctors add that the
waters had this effect upon the adulteress only in case the husband had
never offended in the same kind; but that, if he had at any time
defiled the marriage-bed, God did not thus right him against his
injurious wife; and that therefore in the latter and degenerate ages of
the Jewish church, when uncleanness did abound, this way of trial was
generally disused and laid aside; men, knowing their own crimes, were
content not to know their wives’ crimes. And to this perhaps may refer
the threatening
(Hos. iv. 14),
I will not punish your spouses when they commit adultery, for you
yourselves are separated with whores.
[2.] If she were innocent, the water she drank would be physic to her:
She shall be free, and shall conceive seed,
v. 28.
The Jewish writers magnify the good effects of this water to the
innocent woman, that, to recompense her for the wrong done to her by
the suspicion, she should, after the drinking of these waters, be
stronger and look better than ever; if she was sickly, she should
become healthful, should bear a man-child, and have easy labour.
2. From the whole we may learn,
(1.) That secret sins are known to God, and sometimes are strangely
brought to light in this life; however, there is a day coming when God
will, by Jesus Christ, as here by the priest, judge the secrets of
men according to the gospel,
Rom. ii. 16.
(2.) That, in particular, Whoremongers and adulterers God will
judge. The violation of conjugal faith and chastity is highly
provoking to the God of heaven, and sooner or later it will be reckoned
for. Though we have not now the waters of jealousy to be a sensible
terror to the unclean, yet we have a word from God which ought to be as
great a terror, that if any man defile the temple of God, him shall
God destroy,
1 Cor. iii. 17.
(3.) That God will find out some way or other to clear the innocency of
the innocent, and to bring forth their righteousness as the light.
(4.) That to the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled
nothing is so,
The same word is to some a savour of life unto life, to others a
savour of death unto death, like those waters of jealousy,
according as they receive it; the same providence is for good to some
and for hurt to others,
And, whatsoever it is intended for, it shall not return
void.
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