NUMBERS 5
The encamping of the children of Israel having been ordered in relation to the tent of meeting, and the service of the Levites appointed, we now learn that God dwells in the midst of the camps. This necessitates undefiled conditions, for if God dwells in the midst of His people their condition and their associations must be suitable to Him. So we read, “Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by a dead person”. To put such out of the camp was not left to the priests or Levites; it was the solemn responsibility of all “the children of Israel”. And we are told, “the children of Israel did so” (verse 4); there was no hesitation in carrying out the divine command. They realised at that moment that God dwelt in their midst, and that all must be suitable to Him.
The leper had a deep-seated, constitutional disease which was typical of sin as the principle of lawlessness actively working in the flesh. One characterised by the activity of self-will is a moral leper. Such could have no place in a system which is ordered in every [p. 46] detail in accordance with the will of God. The principle of self-will is unclean, wherever it may be found, but it is never so manifestly unclean as when it is found asserting itself in the sphere of divine things. It is to be absolutely refused a footing there.
Then one with an issue would represent one who may desire to restrain manifestations of the flesh, but is unable to do so. He has no power to exercise self-control. The typical import of leprosy and an issue or flux has been noticed in considering Leviticus 13 - Leviticus 15. (see “Outline of Leviticus”.) But it will be observed that one who has an issue is now to be excluded from the camp as well as the leper. The commandment is more stringent than in Leviticus. There is instruction in this. Between Leviticus 15 and Numbers 5 the camp had been ordered according to the mind of God, and this brought in a new standard of holy requirement. Before things are set in order God may bear with a good deal that is not in conformity with His pleasure, but when He has given light as to His mind about things a new and divine standard is set up. God has allowed much to pass in the Christian profession, where divine order is really unknown, that He would regard very seriously if it took place amongst those who know His will. Increased light as to divine assembly order carries with it increased responsibility to maintain conditions such as are suitable to the place where God dwells.
A great restraint would be put upon self-will, and upon manifestations of the flesh, if we bore in mind that these things are unsuitable to the place where God dwells; they cannot be allowed any place there. God would have us to apply this in the way of self-judgment, the whole assembly being cleared by each one refusing these elements in himself. This is the thought of purging out the old leaven in 1 Corinthians 5.
[p. 47] Wicked persons are not to be retained in the fellowship of God’s people; but purging out the old leaven means that the whole assembly clears itself, by self-judgment, of that which works in the flesh. Each one has to see that the purging is carried on in himself, so that the assembly may be practically unleavened.
“And whosoever is defiled by a dead person” was also to be “put out of the camp”. There is more reference to being defiled by the dead in this book than in any other. The Nazarite defiled the head of his consecration if he touched a dead body (chapter 6); those unclean through the dead body of a man could not eat the passover (chapter 9); any Israelite who did not purify himself after contact with one dead defiled the tabernacle of Jehovah (chapter 19). In each case it is “the dead body of a man” that defiles, not the carcase of an animal, showing that it is not death in itself that defiles, but man as being in that state. To touch a dead body would typify coming into moral contact with that in man which has no vitality Godward. There is an immense amount of this in the Christian profession, as it is said of Sardis, “thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead” (Revelation 3:1), but such a state is defiling to the people of God who touch it. There is something actively offensive in the leper, and in the one with an issue; they represent the flesh in a wilful or unrestrained form. But the defilement which comes of contact with a dead person is more negative; it represents the effect on a living person of touching — or coming under the influence of — that which has no vitality Godward. Such is the flesh at its best estate. If man, as according to the flesh, yields nothing for God, to give that man any place in a religious way is to bring in what is essentially unclean. And if God dwells in the midst of His people, as He surely does, He cannot tolerate [p. 48] among them a defilement of this kind. What is of the flesh, even in a religious way, is unresponsive to God; it cannot be otherwise than defiling. We shall learn later in this book how one who has been thus defiled can be purified so as to be in the camp without defiling either it or the tabernacle where God dwells. But here the instruction is that God dwelling in the midst of His people necessitates that there must be no defilement in their camps.
Another section of the chapter follows which provides for things being adjusted that may have been wrong amongst God’s people. Any trespass against a brother is really “unfaithfulness against Jehovah” (verse 6), and it is to be confessed and recompense made. Only thus can God’s people move together through the wilderness in faithfulness to Him as dwelling in their midst. The trespass being recompensed to Jehovah (verse 8) shows that any trespass against a brother is really an infringement of the rights of God, for which He requires to be recompensed even if there are no means of finding the brother trespassed against or his kinsman. The trespasser must, in any case, put himself right with God.
No one in the camp where God dwells is to remain under the cloud of unfaithfulness. God looks for fidelity to Him in our relations with one another, and if there has been any breach of this He makes provision for it to be adjusted. And, in result, we find that the priest is enriched. Even a trespass becomes the means of enriching the priest, as well as “every heave-offering” and “every man’s hallowed things” (verses 9, 10). Every trespass rightly dealt with increases what is spiritual amongst the saints. This is clearly the divine intent, and if we take God’s way we shall reach God’s end.
The covenant relations between Jehovah and His people are often set forth in figure by the marriage [p. 49] bond, and the remainder of this chapter must be read, and its import discerned, in the light of this.
The people having been numbered for military service, the camp ordered, the levitical carrying service appointed, the camps freed from defilement, and provision made for the adjustment of trespass, a deeper and more inward exercise is now suggested. God is jealous with regard to the affections of His people; they are under obligation to be faithful to Him. The unfaithfulness of those who have been in known relationship with God is more serious than the evil course of men who have never had any link with Him.
The spirit of jealousy comes in when the rights of divine love have been owned, where a covenant has been entered into, but cause has been given to suspect that some corrupting influence is at work. How often is the conduct of God’s people such as to provoke Him to jealousy! We see this both in the Old Testament and the New (see 1 Corinthians 10:22). And when this is the case a divine testing will search the inward parts and discover the true state of the affections. At the present time it is always possible that there may be unfaithfulness, and therefore both the faithful and the unfaithful are constantly being brought under a process of testing which is searching enough to penetrate to the most secret thoughts and intents of the heart. Such testing as this chapter sets before us in type is not required in the case of those who have manifestly got away from the Lord and gone into the world. They are exposed by their public course. But the woman who is subjected to the trial of jealousy is one who, if unfaithful, is so “in secret”. There is “no witness against her”; she has “not been caught” in any delinquency (verse 13). Publicly all seems right. She is near to spiritual influences; she can be brought to the priest, and set by him before Jehovah; she can [p. 50] come near the altar. It is thus the testing of one in outward nearness, and apparently faithful to the bond in which she stands, but who may “be defiled in secret”. It is the testing of those who are professedly faithful ones, and against whom there is no evidence that they are otherwise. But if we really call on the Lord out of a pure heart we need not shrink from the test; we shall gain immensely by allowing it to search us.
The first action is that the man upon whom the spirit of jealousy comes is to bring his wife to the priest, and also “her offering for her, a tenth part of an ephah of barley-meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an oblation of jealousy, a memorial oblation, bringing iniquity to remembrance” (verse 15). No unfaithful woman in Israel could be taken by her husband to the priest without “her offering for her” being also taken, Nothing could be more wonderful than this. Christ is introduced at once, typified by “barley-meal”. It is a gracious and yet a holy thought.
This is the only one of the offerings in which “barley-meal” appears, so that it typifies Christ in a special way. It is not His relation to sin or sins in a general way, but the fact that He has become an offering for those who have stood in covenant relations with God, but have been unfaithful to those relations. He is seen in this type as an offering for those who have professedly been lovers of God, but have been unfaithful. This has application, in principle, to Israel, or to those who profess to know God in the present period, or to any individual who may take the place of standing in relation to God. How affecting to any upright heart to consider that Christ has become an offering for persons who have been untrue to the relation in which they stood to God! I apprehend that, sooner or later, we all have to learn to value Him as having taken [p. 51] this place. Christ, in becoming an offering for unfaithful persons, has brought the memorial of unfaithfulness before God so that it might be judged according to the divine estimate of it. So that neither oil nor frankincense are put on the barley-meal. Christ was the Anointed One, His every desire was most fragrant to God, and He is seen in other offerings as “fine flour” which typifies His sinless and personal perfection in the minutest detail. But these precious thoughts are not brought before us in “the oblation of jealousy”. He is seen here as “a memorial oblation, bringing iniquity to remembrance”. God’s object is to make unfaithfulness abhorrent to us, but He does so by directing our thoughts to Christ who has brought the iniquity of an unfaithful people before God that it might be judged in His holy Person. Every secret has been searched out and exposed before God, but it has been exposed as taken up by Christ. He was aware of Israel’s unfaithfulness when He came to her, but the injured One took its judgment upon Himself, so that, when her heart turns to Him she will learn to judge and abhor it as He does. In principle it is so with all unfaithfulness.
The Lord is ever jealous in regard of those He loves, and this jealousy is shared by all His true servants (2 Corinthians 11:2). Both He and they would ever be bringing us to “the priest” that the true state of our hearts may be made manifest. But we are not brought there without an offering, showing that what is really in God’s mind is that we should learn to value Christ more through the experience. “And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before Jehovah”. The thought of being brought to the priest is that we are taken apart from all carnal influences, and come under spiritual handling which sets us before God. If we are conscious of being before God it is the result of some priestly [p. 52] movement; it is indeed where spiritual influence would keep us. “The priest” is mentioned thirteen times in this section of the chapter, indicating what is holy and spiritual and what considers for God. Normally a spiritual person habitually lives as before God. Paul was, in all his responsible service, conscious of being “before God” (see 2 Corinthians 2:17; 2 Corinthians 4:2; 2 Corinthians 5:11; 2 Corinthians 7:12; Galatians 1:20; 1 Timothy 5:21; 2 Timothy 4:1). Sooner or later the presence of God will test Us all; it is wise to let spiritual influences operate freely with us so as to bring us consciously before God now. The result will be that we shall be freed from self-deception, every corrupting influence will be exposed, and we shall learn how unfaithful we have been, perhaps in unsuspected ways, but we shall learn Christ, and shall value Him more. True fidelity of heart to Him will be promoted.
“And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and the priest shall take of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle, and put it into the water” (verse 17). The frailty of the human vessel is recognised (see 2 Corinthians 4:7); but the holy water in the vessel shows that divine power for purification is in every vessel wherein the Spirit dwells. God does not look for fidelity in frail humanity save as the fruit of His Spirit (see Galatians 5:2). The true character of the saint as being a vessel for the Spirit thus becomes a test. Paul so applies it in writing to the Corinthians and the Galatians, both which epistles may be regarded as the trial of divine jealousy. “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Have we been consistent individually or collectively with the fact that the Spirit is in us as “holy water”? How searching is this test!
Them is a further thought in “the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle” being put into the water. This [p. 53] is clearly typical of death (see Genesis 3:19; Psalm 22:15), but it is not death as it may be known in the world, or in human experience. It is death as it is known in the holy place; that is, it typifies Christ as having been laid in the dust of death. Why was He there, if not to show in an unmistakable way that the end of all flesh has come before God? Every movement of fleshly character, everything that pertains to the life of the world, will surely come into the nothingness of death. It has already done so, for the people of God, in the death of Christ. The Spirit who indwells us ever witnesses to us the love of God expressed in the death of Christ, but He also witnesses that everything connected with us as in the flesh has been brought into the dust of death. Unfaithfulness consists in going astray from this, in loving what is of the world and living according to flesh. Every rival to God or to Christ calls into activity what is according to flesh, but the dust in the holy water, if its true import enters into us, exposes this as morally death and corruption. In thinking of the types of the tabernacle let us not forget “the dust that is on the floor”. And may we understand how the Spirit would apply the death of Christ, as set forth in this type, as a test of our fidelity of heart to Him who loves us supremely!
“And the priest shall set the woman before Jehovah, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the memorial oblation in her hands, which is the jealousy offering; and in the hand of the priest shall be the bitter water that bringeth the curse” (verse 18). Mark these movements carefully, for we are all called upon to submit ourselves to them. Priestly movements, whether brought about through our own exercises, or operating towards us through spiritual persons, will ever bring us to the presence of God. Faithfulness or unfaithfulness can only be rightly estimated there. As we have already [p. 54] said, sooner or later the presence of God will test us; we shall be uncovered, and the oblation will be put in our hands. We shall be caused to apprehend that God cannot tolerate in us what He has judged in the death of Christ. It is well for us to be brought to this in a priestly way in the holy exercises of our souls. I have no doubt that the intent of this chapter is that we should take up the exercises which it suggests. We should remember the “jealousy offering” aspect of the death of Christ, and accept the testing of it now in all sincerity and humility. This may lead us to realise, as never before, how unfaithful we have been but when this is felt and confessed in uprightness of soul, and there is the sense of how it has been judged in the death of Christ, we are morally cleansed from our unfaithfulness, and the confidence of our Husband is fully restored.
If there is no integrity of heart the bitter water brings only a curse. It enters into the bowels, “to make the belly to swell, and the thigh to shrink” (verse 22). When God is minded to test a heart that is not really true to Him it will be found that the belly will swell. It will be found that something is being pursued that is for self and not for God. It was so, in an awful way, in the case of Judas. And we have been told, in a very solemn passage, to turn away from “those who create divisions and occasions of falling, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learnt ... . For such serve not our Lord Christ, but their own belly” (Romans 16:17,18). With all their “good words and fair speeches” they are really serving their own ends. Paul warns us of some “whose god is the belly” (Philippians 3:19); such are governed by self-interest, and while professing to be Christians their mind is on earthly things. Their “walk” had fully exposed them to Paul; his priestly eye could discern that their belly had [p. 55] swollen; they had become a curse among the people of God. The swollen belly and the shrunken thigh go together; they expose publicly the absence of spiritual motive, and that there is no power for a spiritual walk. When this appears the trial of jealousy has taken place, and has brought to light utter unfaithfulness. It will not be so absolutely in any true saint, but let us beware of every tendency in that direction.
We do not know when the Lord may test our faithfulness; no doubt He often does so in unexpected ways. But it is open to us to take up at any time the exercise which this chapter suggests, and to apply the divine test in all good conscience to ourselves. Indeed I think the woman being required to say, Amen, amen (verse 22) implies that she is supposed to be faithful in heart, and not unwilling to be divinely tested. If we call on the Lord out of a pure heart we know that, however much we have to judge in ourselves, we do desire to be true to Him. The testing in such cases may be humbling, as it was in regard of Simon, but it leads to increased dependence, and to our love for the Lord becoming apparent.
The curses being written in a book and blotted out with the bitter water, by the priest, would show that they are to stand unless they act morally in the soul by the Spirit so that the unfaithfulness which calls for them is inwardly judged. If they enter into us, as the bitter water did into the woman when she drank it, they are applied by a pure conscience in the bitterness of self-judgment, and this leads to purification so that the curse does not come upon us in a governmental way. It is, we might say, anticipated by the moral exercises of a faithful soul; the elements of unfaithful-ness are judged within, and when this is the case there is a blotting out of the curses in the sense that they do not come upon us governmentally.
[p. 56] It is very striking that the priest does not make the woman drink the water until after he has taken out of her hand the oblation of jealousy and waved it before Jehovah and presented it at the altar. He had put the oblation in her hands before he pronounced the curses. God would not have His people to enter into any solemn exercise in relation to their own unfaithfulness without first filling their hands with Christ. Before we have to face the question of personal or collective unfaithfulness, or the testing which brings it to light, God would remind us that on that account Christ was brought into death for us. It has all come before God, and what is due to it, in the place which He took for us. Iniquity has been brought to remembrance by Christ taking it upon Himself, so that all that is due to it came upon Him. Apart from this there would be no hope of restoration or blessing for an unfaithful one. It is the sense of this that will break Israel’s heart in a coming day. They will never rightly judge their long history of unfaithfulness until they see it as taken up in wondrous grace by their Messiah. They have looked in self-righteousness for a glorious and reigning Messiah to deliver them in an outward way, but they will learn how unfaithful they have been when they see that their Messiah has had to take it up, and suffer for it even unto death.
While this type has special reference to Israel its principles apply equally to ourselves. The Christian profession as a whole has been unfaithful, and none of us can say that there has been no unfaithfulness with us individually. But God would put the memorial oblation in our hands; He would cause us to know that Christ has stood in relation even to our unfaithfulness. The thought of it makes Him very precious, but how it leads us to abhor the unfaithfulness of which He bore the judgment! When Paul writes with his own hand, “If any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha” (1 Corinthians 16:22), he is pronouncing the divine curse on unfaithfulness. But there is no one who has come under that curse for whom Christ is not, as yet, available. God would, in wondrous grace, put Christ into the hands even of the most unfaithful of His people. Bitter exercises may be needed for spiritual restoration, but God would cause them all to operate in the soul by His Spirit in relation to Christ who has suffered and died.
So before the woman drinks the bitter water her oblation is waved and presented at the altar; its memorial is burned upon the altar. It is “her offering for her”, brought for her by her husband, however unfaithful she may have been. And the priest takes it out of her hand, and waves and presents it. No type is more touching, if we remember that Jehovah Himself is really the Husband against whom the unfaithfulness has been committed. And the priest represents what is spiritual amongst His people. But Christ is provided, and put into the very hands of the woman, so that she may realise that He is indeed “her offering”, and it is out of her hands that He is taken and presented at the altar.
God would thus plainly say, My thought is that you should understand that Christ is your offering. Your conduct has been such as to provoke me to jealousy, but I want you to understand that Christ is for you. I would have you to judge all your own unfaithfulness through My Spirit bringing into your soul the exercise of how it has been judged in Christ upon the cross. Christ has been waved before Me; His sweet odour has ascended from the altar. If you have heart appreciation of Christ, and inwardly judge your own unfaithfulness in the light of Christ, you will be morally clean and undefiled, and you will become [p. 58] fruitful to Me. But if there is no appreciation of Christ I count everything else as unfaithfulness. If you do not judge the flesh it is the proof that you do not appreciate Christ, and you must bear your iniquity.
The woman is made to drink the water (verse 26); it enters into her inward parts so as to test all that is there. The divine thought, as it seems to me, being that unfaithfulness shall be searched out by inward exercises, the result of the import of the death of Christ being brought into the soul by the Spirit. God would have the unfaithful state, represented here by the defiled woman, to become detestable among His people. If a person is wholly unfaithful — that is, if there is nothing in the soul that has been wrought by God — the only issue of divine testing is that the true state becomes manifest. But the unfaithful woman is in every one of us; our flesh is not to be trusted for a moment; but if it is inwardly judged, in the light of true appreciation of Christ, the swollen belly and the shrunken thigh will not mark us publicly. We shall be clean, and shall become fruitful for God; the positive features of devotedness, as seen in the Nazarite in the next chapter, will come out in us.
The testing typified in this chapter is not merely a dealing with natural conscience, but a process which brings to light whether there are spiritual sensibilities, and true appreciations of Christ, in the very depths of the soul. If there are such appreciations the test finds something that corresponds with itself. If there are no such appreciations there is really nothing there for God, and the testing results in it becoming manifest that self-interest governs the heart, and there is no power for a spiritual walk.