Reading: Numbers 5-7, Psalm 41

Yesterday we read how God got the people of Israel organized for their big family trip to the promised land. So today we should have then setting out, right? Well, not quite. It turns out there are some behavioral things God wants to make sure the people are good on before taking them on their big trip.

First, he ensures that they are starting off with the “unclean” outside the camp. If we (and they) have been paying attention, this should have already been done. The camp of the Israelites, organized around the tabernacle, is not to contain ritually unclean people, animals, or objects. There is to be a distinction between the common and the holy. God now reiterates that this needs to be done.

Second, God makes sure the people understand that when they violate one of the conditions of the covenant, they are to use the sacrificial system expounded in Leviticus to be restored to the community. These two initial commands are basically shorthand for the purity codes in Leviticus. Israel needs to make a distinction between the clean and the unclean, but there is a way back into the community of the “clean” by way of confession and the priestly atonement.

Third (and this is a doozy), there is a kind of applied case of the seventh commandment. God clearly values marriage as a sacred bond. He designed the humans to reflect his own relational image in their male-female bond that we call marriage. I’m going to jump way ahead here for a moment and point out that all the New Testament references to marriage point back, not to the Mosaic law, but to Genesis 2 and the design as it was in the beginning. So that is where we should go for our definition of marriage and marriage behavior. But that is not where we are in the story. Marriage, at this point, has taken on all the baggage of the human problem. Men had multiple wives, children were as much economic resources as anything, and the lot of the neglected or divorced wife was extremely dire. In addition, there were extremely loose conditions placed on a man for dismissing or neglecting a wife in favor of another. The people of Israel would become exceptional in their need for a condition for divorce, and the requirement of a man to provide for wives, even those who were foreign slaves. Add to all that the natural jealousy that can creep into even healthy relationships between men and women in the best of times. Into this context God gives the people of Israel the seventh commandment. Adultery, which despite recent attempts at redaction was understood even in antiquity to mean violation of the marriage covenant by either man or woman, was prohibited in one of the fundamental conditions of the covenant between God and Israel.

So, that was the end of it, right? No more adultery in Israel. Because that’s how that works. Guess not. But look carefully at what we are reading here. This is not an outline of how to deal with adultery that we know about. This is how to deal with a particular scenario: A man believes his wife has committed adultery, and there is no evidence. Take note that this does not mean that this was a common occurrence. But it does pose a problem for the enforcement of the seventh commandment. How do we know if actual adultery occurred unless we have a witness?

God sets up a little ritual. A man who believes his wife has committed adultery must bring her to the priests at the tabernacle. There is a little sacrifice, and the priest asks the woman to accept the justice of the seventh commandment. She is to accept that if she is guilty, she is deserving of the consequences, but that if she is innocent, she is not. Note that she is not to argue the premise that adultery is wrong. That it is proscribed behavior in Israel is not on the table. While I have spent much time arguing that the Mosaic laws are not for us, I think there is something we can learn here. When accused of a violation of God’s order, arguing that his order is wrong is not a worthy response. Accepting the validity of God’s command, the woman’s words were written and the ink scraped into water along with some dust which she had to drink. Weird and gross, but hardly the worst thing we’ve seen God tell people to it. The consequences of guilt and innocence are then totally up to God- she will either be cursed or free.

What is the point of all this, and why outline it before leaving Sinai and going to the wilderness? While there is no way to know with certainty, it might do to consider what unresolved jealousy does to a person, a family, and a society. God has put into place a way to resolve the a question of jealousy when it may or may not be correct. With this option, there is no reason for the people of Israel to have unresolved conflicts simmering below the surface. Now, there is no evidence at all that the people of Israel actually took advantage of this method in dealing with their family squabbles. Because we humans have a problem and don’t like submitting ourselves to God’s rulership.

The next piece of applied law is the Nazerite vow. This is fairly straightforward: if a person wants to be more dedicated to the service of God, this is how they do it. Given the regulations for the priests and Levites, one might wonder how the other Israelites were to show gratitude, commitment, and devotion to their God. Here it is. It amounts to staying away from grapes, death things, and shaving your head at specific times, along with some sacrifices. The position of the Nazerite will become important at various points of the story as we go along, but there isn’t so much to say about it here.

Finally we have the blessing that God tells Aaron to speak over the people of Israel and the consecration of the tabernacle. The consecration of the tabernacle was a huge offering from the various tribes to stock up the Levites before they set out. Aaron’s high priestly blessing is a little more interesting. You are likely familiar with it, or at least have heard it before, but pay attention to why God gives this particular blessing: it is to put his name on the people of Israel. Israel is blessed by God, this God, and no other god. This is yet another case of God calling out the people of Israel being called out as something distinct and different. Ahead of beginning their great journey, which we will read about tomorrow, God once again reminds Israel that they are not who they think they are.