FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Deuteronomy 22:22 Note: We provide links to specific resources; this is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc. Their views may not represent our own. SHOW NOTES: - Follow The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube - Follow Tara-Leigh Cobble: Instagram - Read/listen on the Bible App or Dwell App - Learn more at our Start Page - Become a RECAPtain - Shop the TBR Store - Credits PARTNER MINISTRIES: D-Group International Israelux The God Shot TLC Writing & Speaking DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
Full Episode
Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. We've been in the wilderness with the Israelites for a little over a year and so far we've made a covenant, established the laws of that covenant, built a tabernacle, arranged an encampment around that tabernacle, and assigned roles to the Levites in the service of the tabernacle.
Today, God addressed the rest of the tribes as well, making sure they were living the set-apart lives of purity and holiness that he called them to when he entered into his covenant with them. Today, when he's dealing with impurity, God starts with the most obvious kind, external impurity.
He orders them to put the people with skin diseases outside of the camp, along with anyone who's come in contact with a dead body. As a reminder, this doesn't mean they're kicked out of his people or that they're homeless. They just have to be quarantined so they don't defile the tabernacle. Next, God moves on to addressing internal impurity. sins committed against God or others.
God calls for confession and repentance, as well as legal restitution according to the laws he gave Moses. If the person someone was supposed to pay back was dead or had no family, the restitution went to the priest. Then we hit a really challenging part of this section, and it's challenging for a few reasons. The section on adultery or suspected adultery is ultimately a call for marital purity.
If anyone defiles that, male or female, the penalty was death in their society, according to Deuteronomy 22. But what we encountered today was a different thing. It was how to handle the suspicion of adultery. They needed a way to address this because it's likely that people aren't going to just confess this outright like God commanded them to do with their sins.
People are going to be more tight-lipped about this because of the fact that this sin gets the death penalty. So we have a scenario here where a man is suspicious that his wife has cheated with another man. And as for why the woman is the one held to account here, there are a few reasons this could be the case.
First, the husband who is suspicious might have no idea who his wife allegedly cheated with, so that man can't be called into account, especially if there is no man. And second, of the two suspected adulterers, she's the one whose body might betray her if she actually did commit adultery.
A man could lie about adultery forever and never get exposed, but if a woman lies about adultery, her body might not be able to hide it for long. So in this very odd ceremony they performed to test her for adultery, God himself volunteers to be a witness and testify, since there were no other witnesses. And honestly, the only person who could pull off this kind of thing is God.
He's omniscient, which means he knows everything. And we've also established that his presence is everywhere and he sees everything, so he was definitely a witness if something happened, and also if something didn't. And not only that, but he's the only one who has the power to pull off the corresponding consequences.
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