Numbers 5; Holy Jealousy PastorRodney’s Weblog podcast

Content provided by Rodney Zedicher. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Rodney Zedicher or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

PastorRodney’s Weblog »
Numbers 5; Holy Jealousy

2d ago

MP3•Episode home

2025 10/05 Numbers 5; Holy Jealousy; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20251005_numbers-5.mp3

We are with Jesus in the wilderness. Out of Egypt, no longer slaves, but not yet to the promised land, not yet home. This is the people of God organized by God around God at the center of the camp. The fighting men numbered for war, organized to march, to take ground from the enemy. YHWH God desires to live among his people, but God’s holiness is dangerous to sinners. The families of Levi are set apart to camp around YHWH’s tent, to guard the people from God’s wrath, to guard God’s tent from unholy intruders. God’s holy presence is so lethal, even the Levite tribes assigned to carry the furniture from God’s holy tent were not allowed any direct contact; Aaron and the priests were to cover all the furniture with layers of cloth so God’s holy things could not be seen, and place the carrying poles in the rings so that nothing would be touched directly.

There is an expectation that God’s people would be holy, pursue life consistent with God’s holy character; and there is also an understanding that we fallen humans are flawed and fall short, so provision is made for sacrifice, for confession of sin and reconciliation with God. The whole tabernacle is structured for access to God through blood sacrifices. The book of Leviticus details what kinds of sacrifices are to be offered when and for what.

Numbers chapter 5 deals with excluding uncleanness, making restitution when we break faith with God and neighbor, and holy jealousy in the marriage relationship.

Uncleanness Excluded from the Camp

Numbers 5 begins with and repeats the words ‘YHWH spoke to Moses, saying’. Don’t ever get over this. YHWH God speaks. He is a communicating God. He wants to be known. He gives his word to his people, so that we know who he is, what he is like, how we are to relate to him. This is the word of the Lord.

Numbers 5:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. 3 You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.” 4 And the people of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp; as the LORD said to Moses, so the people of Israel did.

Sickness, disease, death is a result of the curse, of sin. God is holy, and God’s people are to be holy. Sin is defiling, polluting, corrupting. Sin contaminates, sin spreads. So sin is to be excluded. The majority of these kinds of uncleanness are not intentional rebellion against God, it is just part of living in a fallen broken world. But God dwells with his people, and brings life and healing and wholeness, so any defiling thing is to be excluded. For all the gory details, you can read Leviticus chapters 13, 15, and 21. If you do read those sections, you will see that the focus is on how the excluded person can be cleansed and restored to the camp, brought near again to God’s holy presence.

Jesus perfectly revealed his Father’s heart toward the sick, the diseased, the infected, the outcast. When questioned about eating with tax collectors and sinners,

Luke 5:31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

When a man filled with leprosy came to Jesus, he had compassion on him, stretched out his hand and touched him, and cleansed him of leprosy (Lk.5:12-13). When an unclean woman with chronic bleeding secretly touched Jesus in the crowd, he did not rebuke her but approved of her faith and extended shalom to her (Lk.8:43-48). Jesus took the hand of a young dead girl and raised her to life (Lk.8:49-55). Jesus was not contaminated by contact with sickness, disease or death; instead those who came into contact with Jesus were made whole, made clean.

Breaking Faith with God and Neighbor; Restitution

Numbers 5:5 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 6 “Speak to the people of Israel, When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the LORD, and that person realizes his guilt, 7 he shall confess his sin that he has committed. And he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong.

God’s people are to be cleansed from all uncleanness. This extends to relationships between people, because sin against another person is ultimately breaking faith with the LORD. Exodus 22 and Leviticus 6:1–7 detail the kinds of sins that require restitution; things like deceiving, robbing, or oppressing a neighbor, finding something someone lost and lying about it, swearing falsely. These are all different methods of wanting what you have and taking it for myself. I don’t care about you, I just want your stuff. This breaks down society; it damages relationships both on the horizontal and on the vertical.

The law made room for confession and forgiveness. But to restore the relationships, restitution was required; what was taken must be paid back in full, and 20 percent added to it. Also a ram without blemish was to be offered as compensation to the LORD for a guilt offering.

But what if the person you wronged is gone? What if there are no near relatives to make it right to? Does that mean there can be no forgiveness? Numbers 5 answers the question about what to do when there is no one to whom restitution can be made.

Numbers 5:8 But if the man has no next of kin to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution for wrong shall go to the LORD for the priest, in addition to the ram of atonement with which atonement is made for him. 9 And every contribution, all the holy donations of the people of Israel, which they bring to the priest, shall be his. 10 Each one shall keep his holy donations: whatever anyone gives to the priest shall be his.”

Numbers 5 graciously allows the restitution to go to God, which meant that the restitution would go to God’s servants the priests, and forgiveness could still be secured for the one who was guilty.

When Jesus invited himself over to stay at a chief tax collector’s house, the crowds grumbled that he was going to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. But contact with Jesus transforms people. This greedy man now responded to God’s grace this way:

Luke 19:8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”

The law required repayment of 120%. But this man offered 400% restitution to anyone he had defrauded of anything.

Luke 19:9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Contact with Jesus transforms people. He transforms our hearts, our relationship with God and with our neighbor.

Jealous Zeal Against Covenant Unfaithfulness

Some find this next section hard to swallow. At first read it seems a bit barbaric and one-sided. A husband suspects his wife of marital infidelity, he suspects she has broken faith with him and gone astray, but he has no legal evidence against her. So he brings her to the tabernacle, before a priest, with a grain offering of jealousy, a little over 2 liters of barley to offer to the Lord. The priests takes water from the tabernacle in a jar and mixes in dust from the presence of God in the tabernacle. He lets down her hair, puts her husbands grain offering in her hands, and makes her take an oath;

Numbers 5:19 Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, ‘If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband’s authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse. 20 But if you have gone astray, though you are under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself, and some man other than your husband has lain with you, 21 then’ (let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman) ‘the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the LORD makes your thigh fall away and your body swell. 22 May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’ 23 “Then the priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness.

Then the priest offers the grain offering, and makes the woman drink the water.

Numbers 5:27 And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. 28 But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.

This seems like a strange procedure to us. First, it is important to understand that this whole procedure points us to the high and holy covenant that marriage is and the importance of marital faithfulness.

It is also important to understand that the word ‘jealousy’ doesn’t always mean exactly what we might think it means. We often use it synonymously with envy; thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of something. Jealousy can consist of emotions like anger, unhappiness, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness or disgust.

But jealousy can also mean zeal; a passion to defend that which is right and good and honorable; God is jealous or zealous for his name. He is passionate to defend the honor of his good name. Later in Numbers (25) we will meet Phinehas, who was jealous to defend God’s honor against cheap imitations. Jealousy in marriage is a passion to defend that which is right and good and beautiful in the context of an exclusive covenant relationship. Jealousy guards the intimacy of marriage against cheapening, trivializing, using it in a way that betrays and breaks trust, is treacherously unfaithful.

Jealous God

God often uses the imagery of the marriage relationship to describe the kind of exclusive covenant relationship he desires to have with his people. God says:

Exodus 6:7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

That sounds a lot like wedding vows. He says:

Exodus 34:14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

He says this in the context of a warning against whoring after other gods.

Deuteronomy 4:23 Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the LORD your God has forbidden you. 24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 6:13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15 for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God— lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

James calls those who pursue their own passions:

James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Marital faithfulness is bigger than just the marriage relationship; it is a picture of Christ and his Bride the Church;

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. …31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

The Bitter Cup

The priest would put the bitter cup into the hand of the woman, taking her fate out of the hand of her jealous husband and putting her into the hands of God, who would decisively demonstrate either her guilt or her innocence. The husband would stand by and wait to see the judgment of God. But Christ gave himself up for us. Jesus took the bitter cup out of our hands and drank it down himself. It was not a question of if we were guilty; he knew what we deserved, and he took that just judgment into his own body. He knew we were unholy, so he sanctified us, set us apart and made us holy. He knew our filth, so he cleansed us, washed us with the water of the word. He took the words of the curse washed into the cup of divine wrath and drank them in our place. He became a curse for us (Gal.3:13). We were made from dust, and to dust we will return (Gen.3:19), but Jesus drank down the dust of death so that we could enjoy life in his presence.

Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

John 18:11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

10 episodes

#Bible #Sermons #Teaching #Doctrine #Theology #Utah #Rodney Zedicher #Society #Christianity #Religion #Expositional