Day 056 (Numbers 5-6) - Year 7

Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. We've been in the wilderness with the Israelites for a little over a year, and so far we've made a covenant, established the laws of that covenant, built a tabernacle, arranged an encampment around that tabernacle, and assigned roles to the Levites in the service of the tabernacle.
Today, God addressed the rest of the tribes as well, making sure they were living the set-apart lives of purity and holiness that He called them to when He entered into His covenant with them. Today, when He's dealing with impurity, God starts with the most obvious kind—external impurity.
He orders them to put the people with skin diseases outside of the camp, along with anyone who's come in contact with a dead body. As a reminder, this doesn't mean they're kicked out of his people or that they're homeless.
They just have to be quarantined so they don't defile the tabernacle. Next, God moves on to addressing internal impurity, sins committed against God or others.
God calls for confession and repentance, as well as legal restitution according to the laws he gave Moses. If the person someone was supposed to pay back was dead or had no family, the restitution went to the priest.
Then we hit a really challenging part of this section, and it's challenging for a few reasons. The section on adultery or suspected adultery is ultimately a call for marital purity.

If anyone defiles that, male or female, the penalty was death in their society, according to Deuteronomy 22.

But what we encountered today was a different thing.

It was how to handle the suspicion of adultery.

They needed a way to address this because it's likely that people aren't going to just

confess this outright like God commanded them to do with their sins.

People are going to be more tight-lipped about this because of the fact that this sin gets the death penalty. So we have a scenario here where a man is suspicious that his wife has cheated with another man.
And as for why the woman is the one held to account here, there are a few reasons this could be the case. First, the husband who is suspicious might have no idea who his wife allegedly cheated with, so that man can't be called into account, especially if there is no man.
And second, of the two suspected adulterers, she's the one whose body might betray her if she actually did commit adultery. A man could lie about adultery forever and never get exposed, but if a woman lies about adultery, her body might not be able to hide it for long.
So in this very odd ceremony they performed to test her for adultery, God himself volunteers to be a witness and testify, since there were no other witnesses. And honestly, the only person who could pull off this kind of thing is God.
He's omniscient, which means he knows everything. And we've also established that his presence is everywhere and he sees everything, so he was a witness if something happened and also if something didn't and not only that but he's the only one who has the power to pull off the corresponding consequences.
He's the giver of life so he controls the outcome of any potential pregnancy here. As far as the meaning of these curses it's unclear what they mean.
As far as the womb swelling some people think that means pregnancy or the appearance of pregnancy. And as far as the meaning of these curses, it's unclear what they mean.
As far as the womb swelling, some people think that means pregnancy or the appearance of pregnancy. And as far as her thigh falling away, some people think that means miscarriage or infertility.
And in case there's any confusion, none of the commentaries I read thought 531 was referring to the male adulterer being free from iniquity. It seems to point to the husband, since he was the most recent man referred to in the text.

And we already know from Deuteronomy 22 that God holds both adulterers responsible.

You may have noticed that there's no equivalent test

for a woman who suspects her husband of committing adultery.

That's likely because the sad state of affairs

in the ancient Near East

was that women just accepted it for the most part.

We've even seen at least three instances where a woman gave her husband to another woman. Men having multiple wives was so common that women may not have known to expect more from their husbands, despite God's high view of marriage.
This process of addressing suspicion likely protected an innocent woman from the wrath of her husband and their community. And for the guilty woman, she bears the curse, but she still receives God's mercy.
She doesn't get the death penalty she deserves under the law. In chapter 6, we learned about Nazarite vows.
The most famous Nazarites are John the Baptist, Samson, and Samuel. Those examples are all men, but women could also make this vow.
The Nazarite vow made a person visibly and morally distinct from others, setting them apart in ways that pointed to God. Most of the rules for being a Nazarite overlapped with a lot of the requirements for a priest, but actually exceeded them.
For example, you may recall that priests weren't allowed to drink on the job. Nazarites weren't allowed to drink at all.
In fact, they weren't even allowed to eat grapes or anything containing grapes or grape seeds or grape skins. Most Nazarites took this vow for a specific prearranged period of time.
And if he or she happened to break the vow at any point, even accidentally, they had to start over. All three of our most famous Nazarites were unique in that they had a lifelong commitment, not a short-term one.
We ended today with a blessing that God told Moses to tell Aaron to tell the people. It was like a holy version of that game, Telephone.
And you may have recognized it. We still say this blessing today.
This blessing was my God shot. He wants to bless us.
He actually commanded His servants to bless His people. So if it's okay with you, I'd just like to read and pray that over you and ask God to fulfill these things in your life.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

And may He also give you a deep, rich, abiding, fear-dispelling, chaos-calming, circumstance-defying joy.

Because He's where the joy is.

Okay, Bible readers, it's time for our weekly check-in. How's it going? As for me, I'm celebrating the fact that you were in God's Word today, regardless of how many days it took you to get to this point.
Even if you're not, quote unquote, on track, you are right on time. And you know what else is worth celebrating today? The amazing blessing from God that was spoken over us in today's reading.

It's worth repeating again and again.

So here it goes.

The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Yes and amen.