Numbers 5:16-22

5:16 “‘Then the priest will bring her near and have her stand ¹  before the Lord. 5:17 The priest will then take holy water ²  in a pottery jar, and take some ³  of the dust ⁴  that is on the floor of the tabernacle, and put it into the water. 5:18 Then the priest will have the woman stand before the Lord, uncover the woman’s head, and put the grain offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of suspicion. The priest will hold in his hand the bitter water that brings a curse. ⁵  5:19 Then the priest will put the woman under oath and say to the her, “If no other ⁶  man has had sexual relations with you, and if you have not gone astray and become defiled while under your husband’s authority, may you be free from this bitter water that brings a curse. ⁷  5:20 But if you ⁸  have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had sexual relations with you….” ⁹  5:21 Then the priest will put the woman under the oath of the curse ¹⁰  and will say ¹¹  to the her, “The Lord make you an attested curse ¹²  among your people, ¹³  if the Lord makes ¹⁴  your thigh fall away ¹⁵  and your abdomen swell; ¹⁶  5:22 and this water that causes the curse will go ¹⁷  into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh rot.” ¹⁸  Then the woman must say, “Amen, amen.” ¹⁹ 

[5:16]  ¹ tn The verb is the Hiphil of the word “to stand.” It could be rendered “station her,” but that sounds too unnatural. This is a meeting between an accused person and the Judge of the whole earth.

[5:17]  ² tn This is probably water taken from the large bronze basin in the courtyard. It is water set apart for sacred service. “Clean water” (so NEB) does not capture the sense very well, but it does have the support of the Greek that has “pure running water.” That pure water would no doubt be from the bronze basin anyway.

[5:17]  ³ tn Heb “from.” The preposition is used here with a partitive sense.

[5:17]  ⁴ sn The dust may have come from the sanctuary floor, but it is still dust, and therefore would have all the pollutants in it.

[5:18]  ⁵ tn The expression has been challenged. The first part, “bitter water,” has been thought to mean “water of contention” (so NEB), but this is not convincing. It has some support in the versions which read “contention” and “testing,” no doubt trying to fit the passage better. N. H. Snaith (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 129) suggests from an Arabic word that it was designed to cause an abortion – but that would raise an entirely different question, one of who the father of a child was. And that has not been introduced here. The water was “bitter” in view of the consequences it held for her if she was proven to be guilty. That is then enforced by the wordplay with the last word, the Piel participle הַמְאָרֲרִים (ham’ararim). The bitter water, if it convicted her, would pronounce a curse on her. So she was literally holding her life in her hands.

[5:19]  ⁶ tn The word “other” is implied, since the woman would not be guilty of having sexual relations with her own husband.

[5:19]  ⁷ sn Although there would be stress involved, a woman who was innocent would have nothing to hide, and would be confident. The wording of the priest’s oath is actually designed to enable the potion to keep her from harm and not produce the physical effects it was designed to do.

[5:20]  ⁸ tn The pronoun is emphatic – “but you, if you have gone astray.”

[5:20]  ⁹ tn This is an example of the rhetorical device known as aposiopesis, or “sudden silence.” The sentence is broken off due to the intensity or emphasis of the moment. The reader is left to conclude what the sentence would have said.

[5:21]  ¹⁰ sn For information on such curses, see M. R. Lehmann, “Biblical Oaths,” ZAW 81 (1969): 74-92; A. C. Thiselton, “The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writings,” JTS 25 (1974): 283-99; and F. C. Fensham, “Malediction and Benediction in Ancient Vassal Treaties and the Old Testament,” ZAW 74 (1962): 1-9.

[5:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the priest will say.”

[5:21]  ¹² tn This interpretation takes the two nouns as a hendiadys. The literal wording is “the Lord make you a curse and an oath among the people.” In what sense would she be an oath? The point of the whole passage is that the priest is making her take an oath to see if she has been sinful and will be cursed.

[5:21]  ¹³ sn The outcome of this would be that she would be quoted by people in such forms of expression as an oath or a curse (see Jer 29:22).

[5:21]  ¹⁴ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition to form an adverbial clause: “in the giving of the Lord…,” meaning, “if and when the Lord makes such and such to happen.”

[5:21]  ¹⁵ tn TEV takes the expression “your thigh” as a euphemism for the genitals: “cause your genital organs to shrink.”

[5:21]  ¹⁶ sn Most commentators take the expressions to be euphemisms of miscarriage or stillbirth, meaning that there would be no fruit from an illegitimate union. The idea of the abdomen swelling has been reinterpreted by NEB to mean “fall away.” If this interpretation stands, then the idea is that the woman has become pregnant, and that has aroused the suspicion of the husband for some reason. R. K. Harrison (Numbers [WEC], 111-13) discusses a variety of other explanations for diseases and conditions that might be described by these terms. He translates it with “miscarriage,” but leaves open what the description might actually be. Cf. NRSV “makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge.”

[5:22]  ¹⁷ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. It could be taken as a jussive following the words of the priest in the previous section, but it is more likely to be a simple future.

[5:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “fall away.”

[5:22]  ¹⁹ tn The word “amen” carries the idea of “so be it,” or “truly.” The woman who submits to this test is willing to have the test demonstrate the examination of God.