Year 1, Week 16, Day 2 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 16, Day 2

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Numbers 4-5.

Today’s reading covers additional obligations of the Levitical Priests as well as the start of a section addressing matters of ritual and moral purity. Numbers 4 continues the conversation begun in Numbers 3 as it specifies further duties of the various clans within the tribe of Levi. Numbers 4 describes how the Levitical clans would move the Tabernacle. Specific instructions are given, particularly to the Kohathites as they would be responsible to move the holiest of the Tabernacle furnishings: “This is the service of the sons of Kohath in the tent of meeting: the most holy things.” (Numbers 4:4). The consequences of not getting their orders correctly would be fatal: “And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, as the camp sets out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry these, but they must not touch the holy things, lest they die. These are the things of the tent of meeting that the sons of Kohath are to carry.” (Numbers 4:15). Numbers 5 unpacks the implications of the LORD dwelling with the Israelites: “You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.” (Numbers 5:3). The presence of a pure and holy God carries with it implications for how Israel’s way of life would need to entail holiness and purity. 

What struck me from today’s reading was how the LORD intended His people to order their lives around His holiness and purity: “Your decrees are very trustworthy; holiness befits your house, O LORD, forevermore.” (Psalm 93:5). The presence of the LORD in their midst required a concern for holiness and purity. When Israel sinned they broke faith with the LORD: ”Speak to the people of Israel, When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the LORD, and that person realizes his guilt.” (Numbers 5:6). Both confessing any sin to the LORD and restitution of any wronged person were integral aspects of making matters right: “he shall confess his sin that he has committed. And he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong.” (Numbers 5:7). Confession and restitution are the means of seeking restoration in holiness.

One specific area that the holy presence of the LORD had relevance to was the sanctity of marriage. Sexual immorality demonstrates deep moral uncleanness: “Speak to the people of Israel, If any man's wife goes astray and breaks faith with him, if a man lies with her sexually…she has defiled herself” (Numbers 5:12-13). Numbers 5 was the process for determining if a wife truly had defiled herself before the LORD. The scenario in this section is that the husband sensed that his wife was sexually unfaithful, when there is no proof. The husband brought his concerns to the priest who had the wife take an oath and ingest some water: “Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, ‘If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband's authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse.” (Numbers 5:19). By a supernatural act, the guilt or innocence of the wife would be revealed by what happened next: “if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.” (Numbers 5:27b-28). This arrangement, as odd as it may seem to New Covenant believers today; nevertheless, did stress the importance of marital fidelity. The existence of such a process for determining guilt or confirming innocence, did discourage infidelity as it served to remind the Israelites that their sin would find them out. 

While a process for supernaturally determining infidelity has not carried over from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, there is a seamless connect in the two covenant arrangements concerning the connection of God’s holiness and the sexual purity of all who name the name of the LORD: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor…For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4,7-8). While infidelity may have been a private event, the holy presence of the LORD in Israel’s camp meant that even secret sins were forbidden for a people called to be holy. Infidelity is still, more often than not, private event, but how much more in light of the LORD’s presence indwelling believers, require sexual purity: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:4).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe