Numbers 5:17

_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:_ The priest shall take holy water - water from the laver, which was to be mixed with dust-an emblem of vileness and misery (Genesis 3:14; Psalms 22:15). IN AN EARTHEN VESSEL. This fragile ware was chosen, because after being used it was broken in pieces (Leviticus 6:28; Leviticus 11:33)....

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...

Verse Numbers 5:17. _HOLY WATER_] Water out of the laver, called _holy_ because consecrated to sacred uses. This is the most ancient case of the trial by _ordeal_. Numbers 5:31, Numbers 5:31. _IN AN EARTHEN VESSEL_] Supposed by the Jews to be such as had never been previously used. _DUST THAT IS IN THE FLOOR_] Probably intended to point out the baseness of the crime of which she was accused....

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,...

EXPOSITION THE TRIAL OF JEALOUSY (Numbers 5:11-4). NUMBERS 5:12 IF ANY MAN'S WIFE … COMMIT A TRESPASS AGAINST HIM. The adultery of the wife is here regarded only from a social point of view; the injury to the husband, the destruction of his peace of mind, even by the bare suspicion, and the consequent troubling of Israel, is the thing dwelt upon. The punishment of adultery as a sin had been already prescribed (Le Numbers 20:10). NUMBERS 5:13 If it be laid. Or, "if he be hid." This ve

AND THE PRIEST SHALL TAKE HOLY WATER,.... Out of the laver, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, and so Jarchi and Aben Ezra: IN AN EARTHEN VESSEL; which held half a log, and that was but a quarter of a pint, or three egg shells; for no more was assigned, to a suspected woman, according to the Misnah r. Some say only a fourth part: an earthen vessel was made use of, as everything vile and mean was in this affair: AND OF THE DUST THAT IS IN THE FLOOR OF THE TABERNACLE THE PRIEST SHALL TAKE, AND PUT [IT] INTO THE WATER; first the water was put in, and then the dust, as Ben Gersom observes: there was a place a cubit square, where was a marble table, and a ring fixed in it, and when he lifted it up he took dust from under it, and put it so as it might be upon the top of the water s; which was used, either, as the Targum of Jonathan suggests, because the end of all flesh is to come to du...

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...

HOLY. separated: taken from the laver. See note on Exodus 3:5. TABERNACLE. Hebrew. _mishkan._ App-40....

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...