Numbers 6:6

6:6 “‘All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he must not contact ¹  a dead body. ² 

Numbers 9:16

9:16 This is the way it used to be continually: The cloud would cover it by day, ³  and there was a fiery appearance by night.

¹ tn The Hebrew verb is simply “enter, go,” no doubt with the sense of go near.

² tn The Hebrew has נֶפֶשׁ מֵת (nefesh met), literally a “dead person.” But since the word נֶפֶשׁ can also be used for animals, the restriction would be for any kind of corpse. Death was very much a part of the fallen world, and so for one so committed to the Lord, avoiding all such contamination would be a witness to the greatest separation, even in a family.

³ tc The MT lacks the words “by day,” but a number of ancient versions have this reading (e.g., Greek, Syriac, Tg. Ps.-J., Latin Vulgate).