Study Desk

The priest is to offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to make atonement on behalf of the Nazirite, since he incurred guilt because of the corpse. On that day he is to consecrate his head again.

He is to rededicate his time of consecration to the Lord and to bring a year-old male lamb as a guilt offering. But do not count the initial period of consecration because it became defiled.

But there were some men who were unclean because of a human corpse, so they could not observe the Passover on that day. These men came before Moses and Aaron the same day

and said to him, “We are unclean because of a human corpse. Why should we be excluded from presenting the Lord’s offering at its appointed time with the other Israelites?”

“Tell the Israelites: When any one of you or your descendants is unclean because of a corpse or is on a distant journey, he may still observe the Passover to the Lord.

“But the man who is ceremonially clean, is not on a journey, and yet fails to observe the Passover is to be cut off from his people, because he did not present the Lord’s offering at its appointed time. That man will bear the consequences of his sin.

So that place was named Taberah, because the Lord’s fire had blazed among them.

“Tell the people: Consecrate yourselves in readiness for tomorrow, and you will eat meat because you wept in the Lord’s hearing, ‘Who will feed us meat? We were better off in Egypt.’ The Lord will give you meat and you will eat.

but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes nauseating to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and wept before him: ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”

So they named that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved the meat.

Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he married (for he had married a Cushite woman).

That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut there.

Then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, “Let’s go up now and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!”

But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t attack the people because they are stronger than we are!”

Your corpses will fall in this wilderness—all of you who were registered in the census, the entire number of you twenty years old or more—because you have complained about me.

Don’t go, because the Lord is not among you and you will be defeated by your enemies.

He will certainly be cut off, because he has despised the Lord’s word and broken his command; his guilt remains on him.”

They placed him in custody because it had not been decided what should be done to him.

He warned the community, “Get away now from the tents of these wicked men. Don’t touch anything that belongs to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins.”

At their cries, all the people of Israel who were around them fled because they thought, “The earth may swallow us too!”