Numbers 5:11

_AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES, SAYING,_ No JFB commentary on this verse....

11._And the Lord spoke unto Moses_. Although this ceremony appears to be part of the legal services, still I have thought fit to postpone it to this place, because it relates to the observance of the Seventh Commandment. The object of it is, lest women, trusting that they would escape punishment, should abandon themselves to unchastity, or lest jealousy should lead to dissension, and, by alienating the mind of the husband from the wife, should loosen the ties of pure affection, since thus the door would be open to many iniquities. By this rite, therefore, God proclaims Himself the guardian and avenger of conjugal fidelity; and hence it appears how acceptable a sacrifice in His sight is the chastity of married women, of which He condescends to profess Himself the guardian. It is, therefore, no trifling consolation to husbands, that God undertakes the cognizance of the secret wrong, if, pe...

11-31 This law would make the women of Israel watch against giving cause for suspicion. On the other hand, it would hinder the cruel treatment such suspicions might occasion. It would also hinder the guilty from escaping, and the innocent from coming under just suspicion. When no proof could be brought, the wife was called on to make this solemn appeal to a heart-searching God. No woman, if she were guilty, could say "Amen" to the adjuration, and drink the water after it, unless she disbelieved the truth of God, or defied his justice. The water is called the bitter water, because it caused the curse. Thus sin is called an evil and a bitter thing. Let all that meddle with forbidden pleasures, know that they will be bitterness in the latter end. From the whole learn, 1. Secret sins are known to God, and sometimes are strangely brought to light in this life; and that there is a day coming...

The trial of jealousy. Since the crime of adultery is especially defiling and destructive of the very foundations of social order, the whole subject is dealt with at a length proportionate to its importance. The process prescribed has lately been strikingly illustrated from an Egyptian “romance,” which refers to the time of Rameses the Great, and may therefore well serve to illustrate the manners and customs of the Mosaic times. This mode of trial, like several other ordinances, was adopted by Moses from existing and probably very ancient and widely spread institutions. Numbers 5:15 The offering was to be of the cheapest and coarsest kind, barley (compare 2 Kings 7:1,...

AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES,.... At the same time, and delivered to him a new law: SAYING; as follows....

4. THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE CAMP AND THE NAZARITE CHAPTER 5 _ 1. Concerning the leper, the issue and defilement of the dead (Numbers 5:1)_ 2. Concerning restitution (Numbers 5:5) 3. Concerning the wife suspected of adultery (Numbers 5:11) So far we had the outward arrangement of the camp. This chapter tells us that the camp had to be holy and therefore must be cleansed from that which defiles. Divine directions are given concerning the unclean person, the restitution of anything unjustly taken and what is to be done with a wife suspected of adultery. Leprosy could not be tolerated in the camp in the midst whereof Jehovah dwelt. The persons who had an issue and had come in touch with the de

AN ORDEAL IN CASES OF JEALOUSY. A married woman suspected of unfaithfulness is, in the absence of evidence, to be subjected to an ordeal by being made to drink holy water with which dust from the floor of the Tabernacle has been mingled, and in which a writing inscribed with a curse has been steeped. In the event of her innocence the potion proves harmless, and she becomes fruitful; in the event of her guilt, it injures her (probably by producing abortion). Ordeals similar to the one here enjoined were not uncommon in antiquity Pausanias, for instance, mentions that at a sanctuary of Earth (Γῆ?), in Arcadia, the chastity of the priestesses was tested by their being made to drink bull's blood, which brought down instant retribution upon the unchaste. In the Hebrew ordeal the potion which the suspected woman was compelled to drink had a threefold potency. In the first place, the water (des...

The Ordeal of Jealousy. Though in its present form a late priestly composition this section is evidently based upon very ancient material. Its contents find no parallel in the other Pentateuchal codes; but the custom of trial by ordeal was a very ancient feature in Israelite life, as it was in the life of many other nations, and it still has a wide prevalence, especially in Africa. The forms of ordeal differ greatly drinking a potion (as here), being thrown into water (as in the case of suspected witches in the middle ages in Europe), walking upon heated metal, or holding it in the hand, or very frequently invoking upon oneself a curse which will come true in the event of guilt. The latter, as well as the potion, forms part of the ordeal in the present passage1 [Note: References to ordeals in other nations are given in Gray's Numbers, pp. 44 f.]. Another Biblical instance of an ordeal a...

C. THE ORDEAL OF JEALOUSY vv. 11-31 TEXT Numbers 5:11. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 12. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's 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 is 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, bringing iniquity to remembrance

VARIOUS CEREMONIAL LAWS 1-4. On the seclusion of lepers and unclean persons, see Leviticus 13-15. 5-10. On the law of restitution, see Leviticus 5:14 to Leviticus 6:7, to which the present passage is a supplement, providing that if the injured person dies and has no kindred to whom the price of restitution may be paid, it has to be given to the priest. Numbers 5:9 prescribe that the heave offerings (see on Leviticus 7:28) are the perquisite of the particular priest who officiates at the sacrifice, and are not to be distributed among the priests generally. 11—31. ON MARITAL JEALOUSY. A wife