Numbers 12:15

12:15 So Miriam was shut outside of the camp for seven days, and the people did not journey on until Miriam was brought back in. ¹ 

Numbers 31:13

31:13 Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the community went out to meet them outside the camp.

Numbers 5:3-4

5:3 You must expel both men and women; you must put them outside the camp, so that ²  they will not defile their camps, among which I live.” 5:4 So the Israelites did so, and expelled them outside the camp. As the Lord had spoken ³  to Moses, so the Israelites did.

Numbers 15:35-36

15:35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must surely be put to death; the whole community must stone ⁴  him with stones outside the camp.” 15:36 So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, ⁵  just as the Lord commanded Moses.

Numbers 19:3

19:3 You must give it to Eleazar the priest so that he can take it outside the camp, and it must be slaughtered before him. ⁶ 

Numbers 35:27

35:27 and the avenger of blood finds him outside the borders of the town of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the slayer, he will not be guilty of blood,

Numbers 12:14

12:14 The Lord said to Moses, “If her father had only spit ⁷  in her face, would she not have been disgraced for seven days? Shut her out from the camp seven days, and afterward she can be brought back in again.”

Numbers 19:9

19:9 “‘Then a man who is ceremonially clean must gather up the ashes of the red heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They must be kept ⁸  for the community of the Israelites for use in the water of purification ⁹  – it is a purification for sin. ¹⁰ 

Numbers 31:19

Purification After Battle

31:19 “Any of you who has killed anyone or touched any of the dead, remain outside the camp for seven days; purify yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.

Numbers 35:5

35:5 “You must measure ¹¹  from outside the wall of the town on the east 1,000 yards, ¹²  and on the south side 1,000 yards, and on the west side 1,000 yards, and on the north side 1,000 yards, with the town in the middle. ¹³  This territory must belong to them as grazing land for the towns.

[12:15]  ¹ tn The clause has the Niphal infinitive construct after a temporal preposition.

[5:3]  ² tn The imperfect tense functions here as a final imperfect, expressing the purpose of putting such folks outside the camp. The two preceding imperfects (repeated for emphasis) are taken here as instruction or legislation.

[5:4]  ³ tn The perfect tense is here given a past perfect nuance to stress that the word of the Lord preceded the obedience.

[15:35]  ⁴ tn The sentence begins with the emphatic use of the infinitive absolute with the verb in the Hophal imperfect: “he shall surely be put to death.” Then, a second infinitive absolute רָגוֹם (ragom) provides the explanatory activity – all the community is to stone him with stones. The punishment is consistent with other decrees from God (see Exod 31:14,15; 35:2). Moses had either forgotten such, or they had simply neglected to (or were hesitant to) enact them.

[15:36]  ⁵ tn Heb “stoned him with stones, and he died.”

[19:3]  ⁶ tc The clause is a little ambiguous. It reads “and he shall slaughter it before him.” It sounds as if someone else will kill the heifer in the priest’s presence. Since no one is named as the subject, it may be translated as a passive. Some commentators simply interpret that Eleazar was to kill the animal personally, but that is a little forced for “before him.” The Greek text gives a third person plural sense to the verb; the Vulgate follows that reading.

[12:14]  ⁷ tn The form is intensified by the infinitive absolute, but here the infinitive strengthens not simply the verbal idea but the conditional cause construction as well.

[19:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “it will be.”

[19:9]  ⁹ tn The expression לְמֵי נִדָּה (lÿme niddah) is “for waters of impurity.” The genitive must designate the purpose of the waters – they are for cases of impurity, and so serve for cleansing or purifying, thus “water of purification.” The word “impurity” can also mean “abhorrent” because it refers to so many kinds of impurities. It is also called a purification offering; Milgrom notes that this is fitting because the sacrificial ritual involved transfers impurity from the purified to the purifier (pp. 62-72).

[19:9]  ¹⁰ sn The ashes were to be stored somewhere outside the camp to be used in a water portion for cleansing someone who was defiled. This is a ritual that was enacted in the wilderness; it is something of a restoring rite for people alienated from community.

[35:5]  ⁹ tn The verb is the Qal perfect of מָדַד (madad, “to measure”). With its vav (ו) consecutive it carries the same instructional force as the imperfect.

[35:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “two thousand cubits” (also three more times in this verse). This would be a distance of 3,000 feet or 1,000 yards (1,350 meters).

[35:5]  ¹¹ sn The precise nature of the layout described here is not altogether clear. V. 4 speaks of the distance from the wall as being 500 yards; v. 5, however, describes measurements of 1,000 yards. Various proposals have been made in order to harmonize vv. 4 and 5. P. J. Budd, Numbers (WBC), 376, makes the following suggestion: “It may be best to assume that the cubits of the Levitical pasture lands are cubit frontages of land – in other words on each side of the city there was a block of land with a frontage of two thousand cubits (v 5), and a depth of 1000 cubits (v 4).”