DEFILEMENT AND PURGATION
Numbers 5
THE separation of Israel as a people belonging to Jehovah
proceeded on ideas of holiness which excluded from privilege many of
the Hebrews themselves. The law did not ordain that in cases of
defilement there might be immediate purification by washing or
sacrifice. So far as ceremonial uncleanness was concerned, we may
think this might have been provided for, and moral offences alone
might have involved the offender in continued defilement. But just
as idolatry, blasphemy, and murder caused pollution which could not
be removed by sacrifice, but only by the capital punishment of the
guilty, so certain bodily conditions and defects, and certain
diseases, chiefly leprosy and those akin to it, were held to cause a
defilement which could not be purged by any ceremony. A high
standard of bodily health and purity was required for the
priesthood; a lower standard was to be applied to the people. And
the system declaring the uncleanness of many animals, and of the
person under various conditions, touched at countless points the
life of society. An Israelite who was unclean for one or other of a
hundred reasons could not approach the sanctuary. He had his portion
in God after a sense; yet for a time, it might be for life, the
peculiar blessings of holy fellowship were denied him. He could
celebrate no feast. He had no share in the great atonement. The
precautions and terms to be observed were of such a nature that if
the law had been at any time stringently enforced a very large
percentage of the people would have been denied access to the altar.
It may appear a strange thing that the precept, "Ye shall be holy;
for I am holy," was affixed not only to moral duties but with almost
the same force to ceremonial duties. We can understand this,
however, when we trace the result of the priestly ordinances. They
created religious care and feeling; and the end was gained not so
much by directing attention, as we now do, to faults of conduct,
defects of will, sins of injustice, impurity, intemperance, and the
like, but by keeping up a scrupulous attention to matters not,
properly speaking, either moral or immoral, not: ethical as we say,
which were yet declared to be of moment in religion. The moral law
did its part. But to make the enforcement of moral statutes, many of
which bore on desire and will, the only means of urging the fear of
God, would have resulted practically in a very bare and desultory
cultus. Among a comparatively rude people like the Israelites it
would have been absurd to institute a religion consisting of
"morality touched by emotion." For the mass of people still it is
equally hopeless. There must he ordinances of prayer, praise,
sacrament, and the duties which reach Godward through the Church.
The value of the whole ceremonial system of the Mosaic law is clear
from this point of view; and we need not wonder in the least at the
nature of many provisions which, without grasp of the principle, we
might reckon irksome and useless. The origin of some of the statutes
is apparently hygienic; others again reach back to customs and
beliefs of a very primitive world.
But they are made part of the sacred law in order to enforce the
conviction that the judgment of God enters into the whole of life,
follows men wherever they go, decides as to their state with
relation to Him hour by hour, almost moment by moment. The
ceremonial law was a constant and strenuous lesson in regard to the
omnipresence of God, and the oversight of human affairs by Him. It
created a conscience of God’s existence, His control, His
superintendence of each life. And for a certain stage of the
education of Israel this could be achieved in no other way. The
moral and spiritual progress of a people, depending on the
recognition of the authority of One who is of purer eyes than to
behold iniquity, depends also, of necessity, on the sense of His
oversight of human life at every point.
1. EXCLUSION FROM THE
CAMP
Num 5:1-4.
The rigidness of the law which excluded lepers from the camp and
afterwards from the cities had its necessity in the presumed nature
of their disease. Leprosy was regarded as contagious, and
practically incurable by any medical appliances, requiring to be
kept in check by strenuous measures. Care for the general health
meant hardship to the lepers; but this could not be avoided. From
friends and home they were sent forth to live together as best they
might, and spend what remained of life in almost hopeless
separation. The authority of Moses is attached to the statute of
exclusion, and there can be no doubt of its great antiquity. In
Leviticus there are detailed enactments regarding the disease, some
of which contemplate its decay and provide for the restoration to
privilege of those who had been cured. The ceremonies were
complicated, and among them were sacrifices to be offered by way of
"atonement." The leper was alienated from God, severed from the
congregation as one guilty in the eye of the law (Lev 14:12); and
there can be no wonder that with this among other facts before him
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the law as having
a mere "shadow of the good things to come."
And yet, in view of the malignant nature of the disease and the
peril it caused to the general health, we must admit the wisdom of
segregating those afflicted with leprosy. That Israel might be a
robust people capable of its destiny, a rule like this was needful.
It anticipated our modern laws made in harmony with advanced medical
science, which require segregation or isolation in cases of virulent
disease.
It has been affirmed that leprosy was from the first regarded as
symbolic of moral disease, and that the legislation was from this
point of view. There is, however, no evidence to support the theory.
Indeed the conception of moral evil would have been confused rather
than helped by any such idea. For although evil habits taint the
mind and vice ruins it as leprosy taints and destroys the body;
although the infectious nature of sin is fitly indicated by the
insidious spread of this disease-one point in which there is no
resemblance would make the symbol dangerously misleading. A few here
and there were attacked by leprosy, and these with their blotched
disfigured bodies were easily distinguished from the healthy. But
this was in contrast with the secret moral malady by which all were
tainted. The teaching that leprosy is a type of sin would make, not
for morality, but for hypocrisy. The symptoms of a bad nature, like
the signs of leprosy, would be looked for and found by every man m
his neighbour, not in his own heart. The hypocrite would be
encouraged in his self-satisfaction because he escaped the judgment
of his fellow men. But the disease of sin is endemic, universal. The
whole congregation was by reason of that excluded from the sanctuary
of God.
According to the idea which underlies the priest law, leprosy did
not typify sin; it meant sin. In no single place, indeed, is this
directly affirmed. Yet the belief connecting bodily afflictions and
calamities with transgressions implied it, and the fact that
guilt-offerings had to be made for the leper when he was cleansed.
Again, in the cases of Miriam, of Gehazi, and of Uzziah, the
punishment of sin was leprosy. Under the conditions of climate which
often prevailed, the germs of this disease might rapidly be
developed by excitement, especially by the excitement of immoral
rashness. Here we may find the connection which the law assumes
between leprosy and guilt, and the origin of the statute which made
the intervention of the priests necessary. In their poor dwellings
beyond camp and city wall the lepers lay under a double reproach.
They were not only tainted in body but appeared as stoners above
others, men on whom some divine judgment had fallen, as the very
name of their disease implied. And not till One came who did not
fear to lay His hand on the leprous flesh, whose touch brought
healing and life, was the pressure of the moral condemnation taken
away. Of many cases of leprosy He would have said, as of the
blindness He cured: "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents."
Now is the law to be charged with creating a class of social
pariahs? Is there any reason for saying that in some way the
legislation should have expressed pity rather than the rigour which
appears in the passage before us and other enactments regarding
leprosy? It would be easy to bring arguments which would seem to
prove the law defective here. But in matters of this kind
civilisation and Christian culture could not be forestalled. What
was possible, what in the conditions that existed could be carried
into effect, this only was commanded. These old enactments sprang
out of the best wisdom and religion of the age. But they do not
represent the whole of the Divine will, the Divine mercy, even as
they were contemporaneously revealed. Add to the statutes regarding
leprosy the other, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," and
those that enjoined kindness to the poor and provision for their
needs, and the true tenor of the legislation will be understood.
According to these laws there were to be no pariahs in Israel. It
was a sad necessity if any were excluded from the congregation of
God’s people. The laws of brotherhood would insure for the wretched
colony outside the camp every possible consideration. Denied access
to God in festival and sacrifice, the lepers appealed to the humane
feelings of the people. With their pathetic cry, "Unclean, unclean!"
their loose hair and rent clothes, they confessed a miserable state
that touched, every heart. As time went on, the law of segregation
was interpreted liberally. Even in the synagogues a place was set
apart for the lepers. The kindly disposition promoted by the Mosaic
institutions was shown thus, and in many other ways.
The lepers banished outside the camp remind us of those who have for
no wrong-doing of their own to endure social reproach. Were
sometimes good men and women among the Hebrews, men with kind
hearts, good mothers and daughters, attacked by this disease and
compelled to betake themselves to the squalid tents of the lepers?
That decree of rigorous precaution is outdone by the strange fact
that under the providence of God, in His world, the best have often
had to undergo opprobrium and cruelty; that Jesus Himself was
crucified as a malefactor, bore the curse of him that "hangeth upon
a tree." We see great suffering which is not due to moral
delinquency; and we see the sting of it taken quite away. The stern
ordinances of nature have light thrown "upon them from a higher
world." Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. For
our sakes He was the object of brutal mockery, the sufferer, the
sacrifice.
Besides the lepers and those who had an issue, every one who was
unclean by reason of touching a dead body was to be excluded from
the camp. This provision appears to rest on the idea that death was
no "debt of nature," but unnatural, the result of the curse of God.
Associated, however, in the statute before us with leprosy,
defilement from the dead may have been decreed to prevent the spread
of disease. Many maladies too well known to us have an infectious
character; and those who were present at a death would be most
exposed to their influence. Pathological explanations do not by any
means account for all the kinds and causes of defilement; but
exclusion from the camp is the special point here; and the cases may
be classed together as having a common origin. The notion that some
demon or fallen spirit was at work both in producing leprosy and in
causing death, was involved in the customs of some barbarous tribes
and entered into the beliefs of the Egyptians and Assyrians. This
explanation, however, is too remote and alien from Judaism to be
applied to these statutes regarding uncleanness, at least in the
form they have in the Mosaic books. The few hints surviving in them,
as where a bird was to be allowed to fly away when the leper was
pronounced clean, cannot be permitted to fix a charge of
superstition on the whole code.
A singular point in the statute regarding uncleanness "by the dead"
is that the word (nephesh) stands apparently for the dead body. Of
this some other explanation is needed than the free transference of
meanings in Hebrew. Here and elsewhere in the Book of Numbers (Num
6:11; Num 9:6-7; Num 9:10; Num 19:13), as well as in various
passages in Leviticus. defilement is attributed to the nephesh.
Commonly the word means soul or animal life-principle. When
connected with death it corresponds to our word "ghost," Job 11:20;
Jer 15:9. Now the law was that not only those who touched a dead
body, but all present in a house when death took place in it were
unclean. The question occurs whether the nephesh, or soul escaping
at death, was believed to defile. As if in doubt here a rabbi said
"The body and the soul may plead successfully not guilty by charging
their sinful life each upon the other. The body may say: ‘Since that
guilty soul parted with me, I have been lying in the grave as
harmless as a stone.’ The soul may plead: ‘Since that depraved body
separated from me, I flutter about in the air like an innocent
bird."’ Is it not possible that the nephesh meant the effluvium of
the dead body, the active element which, springing from corruption,
diffused uncleanness through the whole house of death? It seems
quite in harmony with other uses of the word, and with the idea of
defilement, to interpret was unclean by the nephesh, "sinned by the
nephesh," as technical expressions carrying this meaning. The
passage Num 19:13 is peculiarly instructive-"Every one coming in
contact with the dead, with the nephesh of a man who has died." To
translate, "with the corpse of a man who has died," would fix on the
language the fault of tautology. In Psa 17:9 nephesh has the meaning
of deadly, that is to say breathing death; and the idea here points
to the meaning suggested.
The reason given for the banishment of the unclean is the presence
of God in the congregation-"That they defile not their camp, in the
midst whereof I dwell." All that are unhealthy, and those who have
been in contact with death, which is the result of irremediable
disease or accident, must be withdrawn from the precincts that
belong to the Holy God. Human maladies are in contrast with the
Divine health, death is in contrast to the Divine life. Here the
whole scope of the legislation regarding defilement has its highest
range of suggestion. It was a part of moral education to realise
that God was separate from all distortion, wasting, and decay. In
glad and deathless power He reigned in the midst of Israel. From the
living God man received life which had to be kept pure and
disciplined. Among the Egyptians it was held to be sacrilege when
the operator, in the process preparatory to embalming, opened a
human body. He who made the incision was driven out of the room by
his assistants with abuse and violence. Quite different is the idea
of the Mosaic law which makes the holiness belong entirely to God,
and requires of men the preservation of the clean life He has given.
Every statute suggests that there is a tendency in the creature to
fall away from purity and become unfit for fellowship with the Most
Holy.
2. ATONEMENT FOR TRESPASS
Num 5:5-10
The enactment of this passage refers to the sin of theft or any
other breach of the eighth commandment which involved trespass not
only against man, but also against God-"When a man or woman shall
commit any sin that men commit to do a trespass against the Lord,
and that soul be guilty; then shall they confess their sin which
they have done." The statute supplements one given in Lev 6:1-4,
omitting some details, but adding the provision that if the person
defrauded has died, restitution shall be made to the goel, and if
there is no surviving relation, to the priest. The cases specified
in Leviticus are those of false dealing in regard to a deposit or a
bargain, robbery, oppression, -probably in the way of withholding
hire from a labourer, -finding what was lost and denying it; but in
each instance false swearing is added to the offence and constitutes
it a trespass against the Lord. Restitution to man must be made by
returning the amount and one-fifth in addition; to God by bringing a
ram without blemish, with which the priest makes atonement.
In this statute the punishment does not seem severe. But the penalty
is imposed after confession when the offence has been for some time
undetected. The ordinary law required for the theft of an ox, if the
animal had not been slaughtered, double restitution; and if it had
been slaughtered or sold, fivefold restitution. In the case of a
sheep slaughtered or sold the restitution was to be fourfold.
Confession of the theft, according to the present statute,
diminishes the penalty.
Noticeable particularly is the provision for atonement, which is
nowhere else admitted in connection with a serious breach of the
moral law. Any offence against the first four commandments was to be
punished with death; so also were murder, adultery, and certain
other crimes. It might have been expected that false swearing by any
one in regard to theft or valuables intrusted to him would add to
his guilt. Here, however, by means of the ram of atonement even that
offence is apparently expiated. Possibly the confession is held to
mitigate the crime. Still the nature of the statute is surprising
and exceptional.
3. THE WATER OF JEALOUSY
Num 5:11-31.
The long and remarkable statute regarding the water of jealousy
seems to have been interposed to prevent, by means of an ordeal,
that cruel practice of peremptory divorce which had been in vogue at
some period among the Hebrews. The position given to woman by the
old customs must have been exceedingly low. Under polygamy a wife
was in constant danger of suspicions and accusations she had no
means of removing. The whole scope of this enactment and the means
used for deciding between the husband and a suspected wife point to
the frequency and general groundlessness of charges made by men in
the "hardness of their hearts," or by other women in the hardness of
theirs.
The ordeal to which the wife was to be subjected was twofold. One
point was the imprecation of the Divine curse upon herself if she
had been guilty.
This oath was administered in terms and with ceremonies fitted to
produce the most profound impression. She is set "before the
Lord"-probably in the court of the sanctuary. Her hair is loose. She
has the offering of jealousy in her hand-the tenth part of an ephah
of barley-meal. The priest holds a basin of the "water of jealousy."
The terms of the curse with its frightful consequences are not only
repeated in her hearing, but written on a scroll which is dropped
into the water. The second thing is her drinking of the "water of
jealousy," "holy water" mingled with dust from the floor of the
sanctuary, and with the terms of the curse. The nature of the ordeal
was such that few guilty persons would have braved it. The only
thing which appears wanting is a provision for the punishment of the
man whose wife had passed the terrible test. Since the punishment of
this crime was death, and he made the accusation without cause, his
own judgment should have followed. Here, however, deference had to
be paid to the notions of the time, as our Lord clearly indicates.
The absolute right, the just equality between husband and wife,
could not be established. Nor indeed, with all our progress, is it
yet secured.
The ordeal of the water of jealousy must have saved many an innocent
life from wreck. In one sense it was part of a system designed to
maintain a high standard of morality, and in that system it had a
place which at the time could not be filled in any other way. The
main stress lies on the oath of purgation; and to the present day in
certain ecclesiastical courts this is in use for the purpose of
bringing to an end processes not otherwise capable of solution. It
must be noted that our marriage laws, lax as they are thought to be,
do not give to a husband anything like the power or allow divorce
with anything like the facility admitted by the Mosaic law as some
of the Rabbis interpreted it. And this ordeal was of such a nature
that if those in use throughout Europe only a century ago or
thereby, in the trial of witches for instance, be compared with it,
we can at once see its superiority. Those barbarous tests, not used
by the vulgar alone, but by religious men and Church authorities,
made escape from false accusation next to impossible. Here there is
absolutely nothing required which could in any sense injure or
imperil an innocent woman. She might take her oath, see it written,
and drink the water without the least fear or hesitation. The
beneficence of the law is strongly marked along with its wisdom. It
was a wonderful provision for the time.
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