Chapter 5 covers the separation from defilement
(separation from those unclean). The unclean included
the leper and the one defiled by physical secretion or
by contact with physical death. This condition
incapacitated one to serve the living God, and
illustrates the necessity of judging and putting away
sin as a barrier to divine fellowship and service.

Restitution had to be made when a person
committed wrong in the camp. This restitution is covered
in verses 5-10. Unconfessed sin cannot be condoned among
God’s people. The grace of God, which grants unlimited
forgiveness, would be tragic if it did not discipline
the believer. As believers, we must deny ungodliness and
worldly lusts, and live soberly and righteously before
God in this present evil world.

Chapter 6 is a continuation of the laws begun in
chapter 5. Verses 1-8 cover the vow of the Nazarite.
This was a voluntary dedication of a person of himself
to the Lord. It involved abstinence from wine, symbolic
of the natural pleasures of life (
Psalm 104:15), and even of grapes in any form,
representing earthly joys harmless in themselves, but
which cannot give the believer the delight in the Lord
which his heart craves. The Nazarite vow also involved
long hair, which is, in New Testament teaching,
considered to be a reproach to a man (1 Corinthians
11:14). His long hair was the outward badge that he was
willing to bear rejection for the Lord. The vow also
entailed rigid separation from ceremonial uncleanness
contracted by contact with a dead body, even that of a
close loved one. Although Samson, Samuel, and John the
Baptist were Nazarites, yet the type finds its complete
fulfillment in our incarnate Lord, who, completely
devoted to the Father, allowed no natural tie to
distract Him from His heavenly mission. He was holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.

Various sacrificial rituals were prescribed for
the cleansing of the Nazarite from defilement. All of
them point to the finished redemptive work of Christ.
Defilement of a dedicated saint is cleansed only by
confession and forgiveness (1 John 1:7-9).