Big Idea: God’s people must deal with ritual and moral impurities.

Understanding the Text

Following the census of priests and Levites in Numbers 3–4, Numbers 5 introduces laws that involve priests:

1. Cases of ceremonial impurity (vv. 1–4) (cf. Ezek. 44:33)
2. Restitution given to priests for false oaths (vv. 5–10)
3. A priestly ritual regarding a jealous husband (vv. 11–31)

In each of these cases the issue involves the need for Israel to be pure.

Historical and Cultural Background

Requiring those accused of crimes to take oaths was also a practice among non-Israelites in Old Testament times. In Babylon there was a law about a jealous husband that, like Numbers 5:11–31, required a suspected adulteress to take an oath: “If her husband accuses his own wife [of adultery], although she has not been se…