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Numbers 5 Bible study: In the midst of which I dwell
Numbers 5 calls a wrong done to another person a trespass "against the LORD" and asks for confession as well as full repayment with a fifth added (5:6-7). Its hardest law is written for an innocent wife as well as a guilty one (5:14), and brings what no one saw "before the LORD" (5:16). All of it keeps a camp where the LORD says, "I dwell" (5:3).
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“You shall put both male and female outside of the camp so that they don’t defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In Numbers 5, a person who has wronged someone must confess the sin as well as repay what he owes with a fifth added.”
Is that in Numbers 5, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Outside the camp, because the LORD is inside it
The chapter opens with a command: "put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever is unclean by a corpse" (5:2). It applies to "both male and female", and the LORD gives the reason: "so that they don’t defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell" (5:3). The reason isn't that they had sinned. It is who lives in the middle of the camp. Leviticus had already said of the leper, "His dwelling shall be outside of the camp" (Leviticus 13:46), and had warned that uncleanness could "defile my tabernacle that is among them" (Leviticus 15:31). Here the camp itself is set in order, and the people obey at once: "as the LORD spoke to Moses, so the children of Israel did" (5:4).
Where it leads to Jesus
The lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised
Numbers 5:2leads toMatthew 11:4-5
Numbers 5 puts "every leper" and "whoever is unclean by a corpse" outside the camp, "so that they don’t defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell" (5:2-3). When John sent to ask Jesus, "Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?" (Matthew 11:3), Jesus answered, "Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them" (Matthew 11:4-5). Jesus doesn't mention Numbers 5 or the camp, and the New Testament doesn't link his words to this chapter. What they share is two of the things this law names, leprosy and death. These are Jesus' own words set beside this chapter, not a fulfillment of it.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Numbers 5
That was a taste
The rest of Numbers 5 is waiting in Favor
- A wrong against someone is a trespass against the LORD
- When there's no one left to repay
- What no one saw, brought before the LORD
- Defile, and dwell
- An offering with no oil and no frankincense
- 12 questions as you read
- 10 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Numbers 5 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
מַעַלma'alsay MA-al
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "unfaithful, treacherous act". Strong's: "treachery, i.e. sin". In each of its three verses here it comes with its verb, ma'al. The first time, it is a wrong done to another person that is a trespass "against the LORD" (5:6). The second and third time, it is a wife who "is unfaithful to him" (5:12) and who "has committed a trespass against her husband" (5:27). The same word covers unfaithfulness to the LORD and unfaithfulness in a marriage. Leviticus used it the same way: "in their trespass which they trespassed against me" (Leviticus 26:40).
For your group
Numbers 5 Bible study questions
- 1The LORD called Israel's camp "their camp, in the midst of which I dwell" (5:3). How would it change the way you treat the people around you if you took seriously that God is present among his people?
- 2Numbers 5 asks for confession and for repaying what was taken, with a fifth added (5:7). Why do you think it matters to put a wrong right with the person, and not only to be sorry?
- 3The law brought a matter no one had witnessed (5:13) "before the LORD" (5:16, 5:30). What do you do with a suspicion about someone that you can't prove, and what would it look like to bring it to God?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Numbers 5 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home