'BEMIDBAR SINAI' (IN THE WILDERNESS OF SINAI). After having explained the laws of the offerings in the third book, He now began to set forth in this book the commandments which they [the children of Israel] were told with reference to the Tent of Meeting. Now He had already given a warning for all times about [the prohibition of] impurity relating to the Sanctuary and its holy things.⁠¹ Here He defined the boundaries of the Tabernacle whilst it was in the wilderness, just as He had set bounds for Mount Sinai when the [Divine] Glory was there,⁠² and He commanded that the common man that draweth nigh shall be put to death,⁠³ just as He had said there, no hand shall touch him [i.e., the mountain], but he shall surely be stoned.⁠⁴ He also commanded [here], And they shall not go in to see the holy things as they are being covered, lest they die⁵ just as He warned there [at Sinai], lest they break through unto the Eternal to gaze, and many of them perish.⁠⁶ He commanded here. And ye shall keep the charge of the holy things and the charge of the altar, [that there be wrath no more upon the children of Israel],⁠⁷ just as He said there, And let the priests also, that come near to the Eternal, sanctify themselves, lest the Eternal break forth upon them;⁸ and let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Eternal, lest He break forth upon them.⁠⁹ Thus He commanded [here] how the Tabernacle and its vessels are to be guarded, and how they [the people] are to pitch round about it and how the people are to stand afar off, and how the priests that come near the Eternal¹⁰ are to treat it [the Tabernacle] when it is resting and when it is being carried [during the journeyings], and how they are to guard it. Now these are all [signs of] distinction and honor for the Sanctuary, just as the Rabbis of blessed memory have said,⁠¹¹ "A King's palace¹² that has guards over it cannot be compared to a palace that has no such guards.⁠"

Now this whole book deals only with those commandments which were meant only for a particular time, being the period when the Israelites stayed in the desert, and [it deals also] with the miracles which were done for them, in order to tell all the wondrous deeds of the Eternal which He wrought for them. It tells how He began to destroy their enemies before them by the sword, and He also commanded how the Land should be divided up amongst them. There are no commandments in this book which are binding for all times except for some commandments about the offerings which He had begun in the Book of [the Law of] the Priests [i.e., Leviticus], and whose explanation was not completed there, therefore He finished them in this book.