What Does Numbers 5:3 Mean?
From male to female you send out; outside the camp you send them, so that they soil not their camps, in whose midst I pitch my tent.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Both male and female shall ye put out, without the camp shall ye put them; that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell.THE KEY
The verse binds divine nearness to a boundary: people are sent out so the LORD may dwell in the camp’s midst.
THE MEANING
The verse holds communal presence together with exclusion: people whose presence is said to defile the camp are sent outside so the LORD dwells within it. The repeated command to send them out makes the boundary deliberate, while “in the midst” places the dwelling presence at the community’s center.
THE ROOT
תְּשַׁלְּחוּם
teshallĕḥûm
GROWS FROM
שלח
š-l-ḥ
send, send forth, release
“send out” in this verse is teshallĕḥûm. The Hebrew repeats shalach: the camp actively sends people beyond its edge. The same root names a sending away and a messenger being sent, so this is a deliberate removal from the community’s shared center.
ALSO GROWS
shilluach: sending away; dismissal
שִׁלּוּחַ
It makes explicit the sending-away sense carried by the repeated command.
shaliach: messenger; one who is sent
שָׁלִיחַ
This branch shows the root’s wider sense of sending someone outward from a point of origin.
שֹׁכֵן
shokhen
GROWS FROM
שכן
š-k-n
settle, dwell, abide
“in whose midst I pitch my tent” in this verse is shokhen. The clause gives the reason for the boundary in the words “I dwell among them.” The same root forms mishkan, a dwelling place, and shakhen, a neighbor, words that link dwelling with shared proximity.
ALSO GROWS
mishkan: dwelling place; tabernacle
מִשְׁכָּן
It names a place of dwelling, echoing the presence at the camp’s center.
shakhen: neighbor; one who dwells nearby
שָׁכֵן
It shows how the root of dwelling also describes nearness between those who share a place.
יְטַמְּאוּ
yetamme’u
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
be or make unclean; become defiled
“soil not” in this verse is yetamme’u. The root carries ritual uncleanness, appearing as both the unclean condition and its abstract state. The verse locates its effect in the shared camp where the LORD dwells.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: unclean
טָמֵא
This adjective names the condition associated with the verb in the verse.
ṭumʾāh: uncleanness; impurity
טֻמְאָה
This noun names the state the verse says must not affect the camps.
THE PATTERN
The text locates divine dwelling among a people and marks a boundary against what would defile that shared space.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.So you shall keep the children of Israel apart from their soiling, that they do not die in their soiling, when they soil my dwelling that is among them.No common thing enters it, nor whoever makes foulness or a lie, except those written in the Lamb's scroll of life.THE THREAD
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.Both verses use shakan (שכן, dwell) for the presence among the people. Numbers makes that dwelling the stated reason for sending people outside the camp; Exodus names the sanctuary as a place made for that same among-them dwelling.
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