Numbers 19:14 - Exposition

This is the law. הַתּוֹרָה . By this law the extent of the infection is rigidly defined, as its duration by the last. In a tent. This fixes the date of the law as given in the wilderness, but it leaves in some uncertainty the rule as to settled habitations. The Septuagint, however, has here ἐν οἰκίᾳ , and therefore it would appear that the law was transferred without modification from the tent to the house. In the case of large houses with many inhabitants, some relaxation of the strictness must have been found necessary.