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Numbers 5:11

in Numbers 5

Then the LORD said to Moses,

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,

KJV

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

⋯

This verse in Numbers 5

Commentary

5 notes on this verse
The trial of jealousy. Since the crime of adultery is especially defiling and destructive of the very foundations of social order, the whole subject is dealt with at a length proportionate to its importance. The process prescribed has lately been strikingly illustrated from an Egyptian “romance,” which refers to the time of Rameses the Great, and may therefore well serve to illustrate the manners and customs of the Mosaic times. This mode of trial, like several other ordinances, was adopted by Moses from existing and probably very ancient and widely spread institutions.

This site's exposition

Every sacred contribution the Israelites bring to the priest

on Numbers 5:9-11

Verse 9 rules that what the people bring “to the priest shall belong to him”, and the payment of verse 8 falls under that rule. The priests held no land, as Numbers 18:20 states, so what came in at the tent was their living.

This site's exposition

Then the LORD said to Moses

Verse 11 opens the longest law in the chapter. Albert Barnes holds that Moses took up a trial known across the ancient world, citing an Egyptian story from the age of Rameses. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report that the law took over the custom to free it from idolatrous rites.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

8 But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the trespass unto, let the trespass be recompensed unto the L ORD , even to the priest; beside the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall be made for him.

quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — scripture-overlap:95%@v8

And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... At the same time, and delivered to him a new law: saying; as follows.

How the passage was read

What the Jewish commentators add

On the verses either side of this one

A [ tenth of ] man’s sacred objects shall be his; whatever a man gives to the kohein, shall be his.
Targum · Onkelos Numbers 5:10, via Sefaria, Metsudah Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009 [with Onkelos translation]

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.

The words behind it

5 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • וַיְדַבֵּ֥רand he spoke

    vaydaberH1696 →1141 times

  • יְהוָ֖הYahweh

    yahwehH3068 →6520 times

  • אֶל־to

    ʾel-H413 →5510 times

  • מֹשֶׁ֥הMoses

    moshehH4872 →765 times

  • לֵּאמֹֽר׃<to> saying

    lemorH559 →5305 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Where this verse is studied

About Numbers

The Brazen Serpent, Anthony van Dyck, 1618 to 1620. Public domain.
The Brazen Serpent, Anthony van Dyck, 1618 to 1620. Public domain.
Numbers: the study guide →Read Numbers 5 →

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Read on in Numbers 5 →