It has a few laws in it, including keeping the camp pure (forcing unclean people to live outside the camp), restitution for wrongs, and how to test if a wife is unfaithful.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them: “If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure – or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure – then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.” ‘ ” (v11-15)
The laws surrounding this test of impurity are pretty interesting. Even though they are obviously about testing to see if one person was unfaithful to another, God treats us in a similar way when we are unfaithful to Him.
First, the onus is on one person (the husband in this case, or God in the general sense) that if (interesting there’s an “if” here) they are jealous, to take the person in front of a priest for testing. When we are unfaithful to God, He brings us before Jesus the High Priest.
Once the person is is brought before the priest, there’s a test administered to see if they are guilty. If the test is positive and the priest deems them guilty, they are cursed (with barrenness and swelling in this passage). Our curse for rebelling against God however, is eternal separation from Him.
The good news for us is, even though this unfaithfulness scenario doesn’t list a way to reconcile their sin, we know in our scenario we can be justified by the cleansing of Christ’s blood and God’s grace. Our High Priest will declare us justified if we have received Him as Lord and savior. We will not receive the curse of eternal separation from God.
For us today this is great news: even when we are unfaithful to God (even in a small way), there is forgiveness and reconciliation available because Jesus our high priest has purchased our redemption, and testifies to the Father on our behalf.
Father God, thank you for being so gracious and forgiving. Thank you for sending Jesus, Your High Priest to cleanse us of our sin and grant us reconciliation to You. Please help us not to take advantage of this, but to live in a Christ-honoring way whenever possible. Please also help us to inform others of this free gift of reconciliation and forgiveness, so they too can be granted freedom from the eternal curse of separation from You. In the powerful name of Jesus, amen.
~ Conqueror in Training