“And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering of the Lord in his appointed season among the children of Israel?”
Those people came before Moses and Aaron on that day, and said to him, 'Although we are unclean through touching a corpse, why should we be deprived of presenting the LORD's offering at its appointed time among all the Israelites?' — the unclean persons appeal to Moses with a theological argument: their circumstantial impurity should not eternally exclude them from covenant participation. The question 'why should we be deprived?' (lamah nigara'enu) expresses anguish at being cut off from the community's redemptive commemoration. Their willingness to ask reveals their desire for participation despite external circumstance.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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