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Numbers 5 · a question people ask

Were the people sent outside the camp being punished?

In the text

The chapter doesn't call it a punishment, and it doesn't say they had sinned. The reason it gives is the camp: "so that they don’t defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell" (5:3). Some of this uncleanness came from things the law allowed. Even a priest was allowed to become unclean for his close relatives who died: "for his mother, for his father, for his son" and others (Leviticus 21:1-3). When men "unclean because of the dead body of a man" could not keep the Passover (Numbers 9:6), the LORD gave them a second date so that each one "shall still keep the Passover to the LORD" (Numbers 9:10-11). Numbers also has a case where it was a judgment: Miriam became leprous when "The LORD’s anger burned against them" (Numbers 12:9-10), and she was shut outside the camp for seven days. Even then it was not forever: "the people didn’t travel until Miriam was brought in again" (Numbers 12:15). So the text gives both kinds of cases, and 5:3 gives only the one reason.

The verses

“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.””
Numbers 5:3 · World English Bible
“The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, ‘A priest shall not defile himself for the dead among his people, except for his relatives that are near to him: for his mother, for his father, for his son, for his daughter, for his brother, and for his virgin sister who is near to him, who has had no husband; for her he may defile himself.”
Leviticus 21:1-3 · World English Bible
“There were certain men who were unclean because of the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day, and they came before Moses and Aaron on that day.”
Numbers 9:6 · World English Bible
““Say to the children of Israel, ‘If any man of you or of your generations is unclean by reason of a dead body, or is on a journey far away, he shall still keep the Passover to the LORD. In the second month, on the fourteenth day at evening they shall keep it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”
Numbers 9:10-11 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Numbers 5

Numbers 5: 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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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions