We are going to look at two segments of Chapter 5 today. The first segment is titled "The Purity Of The Camp" in my NIV Bible. In this case "purity" is a reference to quarantining away from the camp those who are infected with contagious illnesses. Spiritual purity is not the subject of this segment, although our passage could be used as a metaphor for it.
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body." (Numbers 5:1-2) In Leviticus 13, 15, and 21 we spent a great deal of time studying the hygiene and medical regulations which the Lord prescribed for the nation of Israel. The person with a defiling skin disease (a spreading, possibly infectious rash or blistering or peeling that might potentially be leprosy) or a person with a bodily discharge was to quarantine for seven days and then have their symptoms reassessed. If the symptoms didn't worsen but were still present after seven days, another period of quarantine was prescribed. If the symptoms improved or went away entirely, the person didn't have a deadly illness and could rejoin society after bathing and changing clothes and observing the religious rituals for purity.
Also we learned that coming in contact with a dead body rendered a person ceremonially unclean until evening. It was necessary for close relatives of the deceased to prepare the body for burial and then bury it but after doing so they had to wash themselves, change their clothes, and remain in self-isolation until sundown. This was to help prevent transferring viral or bacterial contagion from the dead to the living. In those days a diagnosis for the cause of someone's death could not always be made. There were no medical examiners to perform autopsies and run blood tests and look at cells under a microscope. For the safety of everyone in the camp, it had to be assumed that the cause of death might have been something contagious, so anyone who came in contact with the body had to bathe and change their clothes and avoid social interaction for a temporary period of time.
There are to be no exceptions for quarantine based on the sex of the person who is ill, for the Lord says, "'Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.' The Israelites did so; they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the Lord had instructed Moses." (Numbers 5:3-4) No could could appeal quarantine based on the hardship it would cause them to send a male family member outside the camp (he would not be able to go to his work during this time) or based on the hardship it would cause them to send a female family member outside the camp (she would not be able to care for children or run the household). Since multiple generations tended to live together in those times, I assume if the main male breadwinner of the household had to go into quarantine, other male members of the family would chip in and help out as much as they could. If a mom of young kids had to go into quarantine, I think her mother or mother-in-law or some other female relative would babysit and cook meals and provide the other needs of the household.
The removal of contagion from the camp can be used as a metaphor for removing sin from the camp, or in modern times for excommunicating a person from a congregation or removing someone as an officer of the church when they fall into public sin. For example, in my own church some years back there was a married couple who were very active in the choir and who taught a youth group one night a week at their home. The husband was carrying on a secret affair that suddenly became public when the woman he had the affair with became pregnant by him and had him served with papers to force him to submit to a paternity test and pay child support (the test proved he was the father). The church was forced to remove this man as a teacher of the youth group. Finding out that their teacher had been living an immoral lifestyle the whole time he'd been leading Bible study was very hurtful for these young people. It would have been wrong if the church had allowed him to continue serving in a position of authority. The church leadership had no choice except to lovingly but firmly tell him he must step down. He was not forbidden to attend the church; he voluntarily left for a time but repented and got his life together and came back. But to have turned a blind eye to the sin of a person who held an office in the church would have been to sin against God's holy word which the church upholds and it would have been to sin against the youth group and the congregation as a whole.
The second segment of our study today involves making restitution for wrongs. In this instance the Bible appears to be speaking primarily about monetary wrongs, such as when a person has defrauded another or has stolen from another or has caused monetary loss in some other way. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites: Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord is guilty and must confess the sin they have committed.'" (Numbers 5:5-7a) Although verse 6 says the restitution mentioned here is to be paid if a person wrongs another in "any way", in the original language the words rendered as "any way" can also mean "in a way that is common". One of the most common ways people wrong each other tends to involve monetary transactions and I believe that's mainly the type of sin in view here in these verses because the one who has done wrong will be commanded to pay the amount back plus an extra one fifth. It would be difficult to place a monetary value on wrongs that don't involve a financial loss.
"They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged." (Numbers 5:7b) If a person cheated his neighbor in a financial transaction of some type, he would have to pay the neighbor back that amount plus an additional one fifth. If a person caused the death of any of his neighbor's livestock, the monetary value of the dead livestock would be calculated and an extra fifth added to the total. If a person caused the deliberate loss of someone else's home or other property, the value of the property would be assessed and he would have to pay that back plus a fifth.
There might be times when the person who was wronged dies before the case comes to trial. The person who did him wrong is not off the hook. The wrongdoer still owes the money to the dead person's heirs. If the dead person had no heirs, the wrongdoer has to pay the money to the priest and must bring a sacrifice of atonement. "But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest, along with the ram with which atonement is made for the wrongdoer. All the sacred contributions the Israelites bring to a priest will belong to him. Sacred things belong to their owners, but what they give to the priest will belong to the priest." (Numbers 5:8-10)
Many of the sacrifices the Israelites brought to the tabernacle could be shared in by the person bringing the sacrifice. Certain portions were given to the Lord, certain portions belonged to the priests to be shared in a communal meal, and certain portions belonged to the one who brought the sacrifice. If I'm reading verse 10 correctly, it looks like in the case of a person making restitution, the entire sacrifice belongs to the priest to whom it is brought. The person who brought the ram could not retain any part of it. It also looks like the ram is not to be a communal meal for the priests but that all of it belongs to the one priest who officiated this restitution ceremony, with the exception of the portions of the ram that belong to the Lord.
Sin is sin even if the person we sinned against is dead. All of us can probably think back on our lives and recall times we've said or done something we wish we hadn't, and in some of those cases the person we'd like to apologize to is dead. Just as we've seen in today's passage, even though the person who was wronged is dead, the wrongdoer still owes something to the Lord. We might not be able to apologize to everyone we've ever hurt but we can confess our sin to God and repent of it. We can pray to Him for the strength not to commit that particular sin again. We can pray for the Lord's help to love our fellow man as the Lord commands us. We are commanded to love others because it's natural for us to want to be good to those we love. Love will help us not to sin against our neighbor. "Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:10)
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