Numbers 5:29

_THIS IS THE LAW OF JEALOUSIES, WHEN A WIFE GOETH ASIDE TO ANOTHER INSTEAD OF HER HUSBAND, AND IS DEFILED;_ This is the law of jealousies. Adultery discovered and proved was punished with death. But strongly suspected cases would occur, and this law made provision for the conviction of the guilty person. It was, however, not a trial conducted according to the forms of judicial process, but an ordeal through which a suspected adulteress was made to go-the ceremony being of that terrifying nature that, on the known principles of human nature, guilt or innocence could not fail to appear. From the earliest times the jealousy of Eastern people has established ordeals for the detection and punishment of suspected unchastity in wives. The practice was deep-rooted as well as universal. And it has been thought that the Israelites being strongly biassed in favour of such usage, this law of jealou...

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 5:29. _THIS IS THE LAW OF JEALOUSIES_] And this is the most singular law in the whole Pentateuch: a law that seems to have been copied by almost all the nations of the earth, whether civilized or barbarian, as we find that similar modes of trial for suspected offences were used when complete evidence was wanting to convict; and where it was expected that the object of their worship would interfere for the sake of justice, in order that the _guilty_ should be brought to punishment, and the _innocent_ be cleared. For general information on this head see at the end of this chapter. Numbers 5:31, Numbers 5:31....

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,...

THIS [IS] THE LAW OF JEALOUSIES,.... Which was appointed by God to deter wives from adultery, and preserve the people of Israel, the worshippers of him, from having a spurious brood among them; and to keep husbands from being cruel to their wives they might be jealous of, and to protect virtue and innocence, and to detect lewdness committed in the most secret manner; whereby God gave proof of his omniscience, that he had knowledge of the most private acts of uncleanness, and was the avenger of all such. The reasons why such a law was not made equally in favour of women, as of men, are supposed to be these: because of the greater authority of the man over the woman, which would seem to be lessened, if such a power was granted her; because marriage was not so much hurt, or so much damage came to families by the adultery of men, as of women; because women are more apt to be suspicious than...

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...

DISCOURSE: 144 THE JEALOUSY OFFERING Numbers 5:29. _This is the law of jealousies._ MANY ordeals have been devised by man; but they are all superstitious, delusive, cruel, and unjust. But there has been one established by God himself, which was open to no objection. It was appointed for the satisfaction of any who might conceive themselves injured by their wives. The jealous husband might bring his wife to a tribunal, at which the heart-searching God was to be both witness and judge. The process was this—He was to bring his wife to the priest; and with her an offering, not of fine wheat flour, but of barley meal; and that without either oil or frankincense; (the offering being intended to mark her humiliating and afflicted state.) He was then to take some holy water out of the laver, and to mix with it some dust from the floor of the tabernacle: and to repeat to the woman a

THIS IS THE LAW OF JEALOUSIES— Grotius remarks justly, that "it is not to be wondered if God, among his own people, produced a miraculous effect for the detection of a crime most heinous, and very difficult to be proved. Indeed, history abounds with examples of the direful effects of jealousy, not only to private persons and families, but to whole states and kingdoms; the design, therefore, of this institution was to prevent these evils, by appointing a method whereby injured innocence might be cleared, and every shameful breach of conjugal fidelity brought to condign punishment. By this solemn and awful decision of Providence, jealous husbands were restrained from cruel outrages against their wives, and wives were preserved in their duty out of dread of this punishment." The Jews tell us, that this way of trial ceased towards the latter end of the second temple....