Numbers 5:11-31

Numbers 5:11-31

[11] And the LORD  spake  unto Moses,  saying,  [12] Speak  unto the children  of Israel,  and say  unto them, If any  wife  go aside,  and commit  a trespass  against him, [13] And a man  lie  with her carnally,  and it be hid  from the eyes  of her husband,  and be kept close,  and she be defiled,  and there be no witness  against her, neither she be taken  with the manner; [14] And the spirit  of jealousy  come  upon him, and he be jealous  of his wife,  and she be defiled:  or if the spirit  of jealousy  come  upon him, and he be jealous  of his wife,  and she be not defiled:  [15] Then shall the man  bring  his wife  unto the priest,  and he shall bring  her offering  for her, the tenth  part of an ephah  of barley  meal;  he shall pour  no oil  upon it, nor put  frankincense  thereon; for it is an offering  of jealousy,  an offering  of memorial,  iniquity  to remembrance.  [16] And the priest  shall bring her near,  and set  her before  [17] And the priest  shall take  holy  water  in an earthen  vessel;  and of the dust  that is in the floor  of the tabernacle  the priest  shall take,  and put  it into the water:  [18] And the priest  shall set  the woman  before  the LORD,  and uncover  the woman's  head,  and put  the offering  of memorial  in her hands,  which is the jealousy  offering:  and the priest  shall have in his hand  the bitter  water  that causeth the curse:  [19] And the priest  shall charge her by an oath,  and say  unto the woman,  If no man  have lain  with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside  to uncleanness  with another instead of thy husband,  be thou free  from this bitter  water  that causeth the curse:  [20] But if thou hast gone aside  to another instead of thy husband,  and if thou be defiled,  and some man  have  lain  with thee beside  thine husband:  [21] Then the priest  shall charge  the woman  with an oath  of cursing,  and the priest  shall say  unto the woman,  The LORD  make  thee a curse  and an oath  among  thy people,  when the LORD  doth make  thy thigh  to rot,  and thy belly  [22] And this water  that causeth the curse  shall go  into thy bowels,  to make thy belly  to swell,  and thy thigh  to rot:  And the woman  shall say,  Amen,  [23] And the priest  shall write  these curses  in a book,  and he shall blot  them out with the bitter  water:  [24] And he shall cause the woman  to drink  the bitter  water  that causeth the curse:  and the water  that causeth the curse  shall enter  into her, and become bitter.  [25] Then the priest  shall take  the jealousy  offering  out of the woman's  hand,  and shall wave  the offering  before  the LORD,  and offer  it upon the altar:  [26] And the priest  shall take an handful  of the offering,  even the memorial  thereof, and burn  it upon the altar,  and afterward  shall cause the woman  to drink  the water.  [27] And when he hath made her to drink  the water,  then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled,  and have done  trespass  against her husband,  that the water  that causeth the curse  shall enter  into her, and become bitter,  and her belly  shall swell,  and her thigh  shall rot:  and the woman  shall be a curse  among  her people.  [28] And if the woman  be not defiled,  but be clean;  then she shall be free,  and shall conceive  seed.  [29] This is the law  of jealousies,  when a wife  goeth aside  to another instead of her husband,  and is defiled;  [30] Or when the spirit  of jealousy  cometh  upon him,  and he be jealous  over his wife,  and shall set  the woman  before  the LORD,  and the priest  shall execute  upon her all this law.  [31] Then shall the man  be guiltless  from iniquity,  and this  woman  shall bear  her iniquity. 

What does Numbers 5:11-31 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

The point of this section is the importance of maintaining purity in the marriage relationship to preserve God"s blessing on Israel.
In Numbers 5:11-15 the writer explained the first steps an Israelite man who suspected his wife of unfaithfulness should take. The offering ( Numbers 5:15) 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; 2 Kings 7:16; 2 Kings 7:18). It was the food of the poor and the cattle in the ancient Near East ( Judges 7:13; 1 Kings 5:8 [1]; 2 Kings 4:42; Ezekiel 4:12). It may have represented, ". . . the questionable repute in which the woman stood, or the ambiguous, suspicious character of her conduct." [2]
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." [3]
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, [4] mourning, [5] or uncleanness. [3]
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, I believe, in interpreting the "dust" ( Numbers 5:17) that 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." [3]1
The physical symptoms of God"s judgment on the woman if she was guilty ( Numbers 5:23; Numbers 5:27) point to a special affliction rather than one of the natural diseases that overtook the Israelites. Josephus said it was ordinary dropsy. [8] This seems unlikely in view of how Moses described her condition. Merrill believed her sense of guilt produced a psychosomatic reaction. [3] Noordtzij concluded that the woman"s pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage because the bitter water destroyed the fetus. [10] It 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." [3]4
"The most probable explanation for the phrase [12] ... 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 Song of Solomon , it becomes edematous and swells up like a balloon. Conception becomes impossible, and the woman"s procreative life has effectively ended ..." [13]
Numbers 5:23-28 explain additional acts that were to take place before the woman drank the water. They are not in chronological sequence with Numbers 5:16-22. Drinking the water was the last step in the ritual, which took place in the tabernacle courtyard.
"The thought expressed here is that that which is written is dissolved in the water and imparts to the water the power inherent in the words so that the water can accomplish that of which the words speak (we must remember that to Israel and the ancient Near Eastern world words were more than sounds; they had power)." [10]1
"The ritual trial of the Sotah [15] 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." [16]
The man that Moses referred to in Numbers 5:31 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 ( Leviticus 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? Evidently she did not. The Israelites were to observe God"s revealed line of authority consistently. A man was directly responsible to God, but a woman was directly responsible to her father (if unmarried) or her husband (if married). Thus a wife was responsible to her husband in a sense in which 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 retained the responsibility for judging a husband who was unfaithful to his wife (cf. Hebrews 13:4).
This procedure protected the wife of an extremely jealous husband who might continually accuse her. He would suffer shame 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." [17]
"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." [18]
". . . 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." [19]
|