The point of this section is the importance of maintaining purity in the marriage relationship to preserve God's blessing on Israel.
In verses 11-15 the writer explained the first steps an Israelite man who suspected his wife of unfaithfulness should take. The offering (v. 15) was a special meal offering. Usually the grain used in the meal offering was wheat ground into fine flour, but in this instance the man presented barley flour. Barley cost only half as much as wheat (2 Kings 7:1, 16, 18). It was the food of the poor and the cattle in the ancient Near East (Judg. 7:13; 1 Kings 5:8; 2 Kings 4:42; Ezek. 4:12).
It may have represented, ". . . the questionable repute in which the woman stood, or the ambiguous, suspicious character of her conduct."39
The meal offering was, of course, representative of the works that an individual presented to God. In this case it was also an offering that the man gave in "jealousy"as a "memorial"or remembrance. He presented it to bring his wife's crime to the Lord's remembrance that He might judge it.
The "earthenware vessel"into which the priest poured the water from the laver was of little value relative to the other utensils of the sanctuary. It was, therefore, a fit receptacle for this test. The "dust"he added to the water probably symbolized the curse of sin. It is what causes humans grief as we toil for a living because of sin's curse.
"Since this dust has been in God's presence, it is holy. As has been said before, one who is unclean is in great danger in the presence of the holy."40
The release of the woman's hair, normally bound up, represented the temporary loss of her glory (i.e., her good reputation). Other possibilities are that it symbolized her openness,41mourning,42or uncleanness.43
M. R. DeHaan offered a natural as opposed to a supernatural explanation of what happened in this trial by ordeal that has captured the imagination of some evangelicals. He believed that the treated water that the woman drank reacted to the chemical composition of the juices in her digestive system that had become abnormal because of her guilt. Science has established that certain emotions and nervous disturbances change the chemical composition of our body secretions. While this might be what produced the symptoms described in the text, DeHaan erred in interpreting the "dust"(v. 17) which the priest mixed with the water as a "bitter herb."
"We believe that, if we knew the identity of the bitter herb which Moses used, the same test would work today."44
The physical symptoms of God's judgment on the woman if she was guilty (vv. 23, 27) point to a special affliction rather than one of the natural diseases that overtook the Israelites. Josephus said it was ordinary dropsy.45This seems unlikely in view of how Moses described her condition. Merrill believed her sense of guilt produced a psychosomatic reaction.46It is interesting, whatever the cause, that the punishment fell on the organs that had been the instruments of the woman's sin.
"The thigh is often used as a euphemism for the sexual organs."47
"The most probable explanation for the phrase [and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away'] . . . is that the woman suffers a collapse of the sexual organs known as a prolapsed uterus. In this condition, which may occur after multiple pregnancies, the pelvis floor (weakened by the pregnancies) collapses, and the uterus literally falls down. It may lodge in the vagina, or it may actually fall out of the body through the vagina. If it does so, it becomes edematous and swells up like a balloon. Conception becomes impossible, and the woman's procreative life has effectively ended . . ."48
Verses 23-28 explain additional acts that were to take place before the woman drank the water. They are not in chronological sequence with verses 16-22. Drinking the water was the last step in the ritual, which took place in the tabernacle courtyard.
"The ritual trial of the Sotah [suspected adulteress] ended with the drinking of the potion. Nothing further was done, and we can assume that the woman went home to await the results at some future time."49
The man that Moses referred to in verse 31 is the man who accused his wife of unfaithfulness. He incurred no guilt before God for being jealous of his wife's fidelity.
This case raises some questions. Why was only the woman punished if she had been unfaithful? The answer seems to be that her male companion in sin was unknown. If she had been unfaithful and the adulterer was identifiable, both partners should have suffered death by stoning (Lev. 20:10).
What about a wife who suspected that her husband had been unfaithful to her? Did she not have the same recourse as the husband in this case? Evidently she did not. The Israelites were to observe God's revealed line of authority consistently. A man was responsible to God, but a woman was responsible to her father or her husband. A wife was responsible to her husband in a sense that the husband was not responsible to his wife. This does not mean that marital infidelity was a worse sin for a wife than it was for a husband. It simply explains how God wanted the Israelites to handle infidelity in the case of a wife. Perhaps God Himself judged a husband who was unfaithful to his wife (cf. Heb. 13:4).
Note that this procedure protected the wife of an extremely jealous husband who might continually accuse her. He would suffer embarrassment by her innocence since this was a public ceremony.
"This legislation forbids human punishment of a woman on the basis of suspicion alone, and, in fact, protects her from what could be a death sentence at the hands of the community."50
"Marital deceit is a matter of such seriousness that the truth must be discovered. It is harmful to the sanctity of the community at large, and destructive of one of the bases of community life."51
". . . this particular case law is included here because it gives another illustration of God's personal involvement in the restitution for the sin of the nation. Within God's covenant with Israel, there could be no hidden sin among God's people nor any hidden suspicion of sin.
"The law of jealousy shows that through the role of the priest, God was actively at work in the nation and that no sin of any sort could be tolerated among God's holy people."52
