Numbers 5:1-4

REMOVAL OF THE UNCLEAN FROM THE CAMP, Numbers 5:1-4.

For some general reasons for the mixture of ritual legislation with history see Introduction, (1.) The purification of the camp from the defilement of leprosy was enjoined for reasons concisely stated by Dr. A. Clarke: “1.) On a purely physical reason; the disease was contagious. 2.) There was also a spiritual reason; the camp was the habitation of God, and nothing impure should be permitted to remain where he dwelt. 3.) The camp is the emblem of the Church, where nothing that is defiled should enter, and in which nothing that is unholy should be tolerated.” We may add a fourth reason. This purification was educational, as were all the other Levitical cleansings, and tended to the development of the notion of spiritual purity. “Howbeit,” says St. Paul in one of his generalizations, “that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.”