Numberschapter 5
31 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead:
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Numbers Overview.
Numbers 5 moves from the layout of the camp to the life inside it. The rulings were given at Sinai to a crowded people who lived tent beside tent and had to settle every wrong among themselves. Three kinds of trouble are taken in turn, and one of them fills most of the chapter. Listen for the reason given at the start, since it governs all three. Then read the long case of the suspected wife beside the harsher trials used by the nations around Israel, and notice whom this one protects.
Context
- Who
- A camp with no police, no forensic evidence and no way for neighbours to avoid one another
- What
- Three rulings for the camp: the unclean sent outside it, restitution with a fifth added for a wrong against a neighbour, and the rite for a wife her husband suspects of adultery.
- Where
- The camp at Sinai, from its edge where the unclean were sent to the entrance of the tabernacle where a suspected wife was brought.
- When
- The second year after the Exodus, about 1444 BC, reckoned from the date the book gives at Numbers 1:1.
- Why
- To keep the camp clean and honest, because the LORD dwells in the middle of it.
Historical context
The three rulings are given to Moses, each opened by its own word from the LORD at verses 1, 5 and 11. The camp in view is the one just numbered at 603,550 fighting men and arranged in four divisions around one tent.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The chapter belongs to the second year after the Exodus, about 1444 BC on the date the book gives at Numbers 1:1. The place is Sinai, and the first ruling turns on the geography of the camp itself, since being sent outside it meant being sent beyond those four divisions. The occasion is the follow-through on the ordering of chapters 1 to 4, and verse 3 gives the reason in one clause, that the LORD dwells in the middle of the camp.
A first hearer knew what removal cost, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown record that people in this condition were generally made to wear a distinctive badge. He knew that ordeals were a standard legal tool for an accusation that could not be proved. The laws of Hammurabi sent an accused woman into the river and took drowning as the verdict of guilt.
In Israel's version the woman swallowed water from the laver, dust from the tabernacle floor and the ink of the written curse, and any one of the three is harmless. He also knew the cost on the other side, since Deuteronomy 22:13 to 19 fined a husband a hundred shekels of silver for slandering his wife and barred him from ever divorcing her.
Significance
For the woman, this was the one place in the legal world she lived in where an accusation nobody could prove was answered by God rather than by her husband's temper or a river's current. It was also the one place where a clean verdict returned her to her household with the promise that she would bear children.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The man who had defrauded a neighbour had to say aloud what he had done and pay back the principal with a fifth added, to the man he had robbed.
For the camp the three rulings said one thing three ways, that what is wrong gets dealt with in the open and before God, because God is living in the middle of it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi dates the chapter before he reads it. The law of sending the unclean outside the camp "was spoken on the day when the Tabernacle was erected", one of eight sections given that day. Rashi names Gittin 60a for the count, and the corpus carries it as a locator on these verses (Rashi on Numbers 5:2:1). Rashi is quoted in this row from the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, which the corpus marks public domain.
The law of restitution is read as a repetition with two new rulings inside it. Rashi notes that the same case of robbery with a false oath already stands at Leviticus 5:21, and says the section is written again here for two points. The added fifth and the guilt offering fall on a man who confesses, rather than on one convicted by witnesses. Property taken from a proselyte who dies without heirs goes to the priests (Rashi on Numbers 5:6:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 2). The restitution itself is the principal about which the oath was sworn (Rashi on Numbers 5:7:1, citing Bava Kamma 110a, a locator the corpus carries). On the ninth verse he preserves a question of R. Ishmael. It asks why the text speaks of a heave offering brought to the priest when the priest must go round the granaries for it. The answer is that the words are there for the first fruits, so that the chapter teaches where the first fruits go (Rashi on Numbers 5:9:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 5). The tenth verse is read as the owner's protection: the gifts are owed, and the choice of which priest receives them stays with the man who gives. Rashi adds an aggadic reading beside the legal one, that a man who keeps back the tithes will find his field yielding only what the tithe would have been (Midrash Tanchuma, Re'eh 10).
The join between that law and the ordeal of the suspected wife is made by the rabbis themselves, and Rashi states it without softening. A man who withholds the gifts due to the priest will find himself coming to that same priest with his wife, which he takes from Berakhot 63a (Rashi on Numbers 5:12:1). The procedure is then read verse by verse as law. The word for a man excludes a minor (Rashi on Numbers 5:13:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 7:2 and Sotah 24a). The jealousy is held to have come on the husband before the seclusion (Rashi on Numbers 5:14:1). The offering is ordinary meal rather than fine sifted flour (Rashi on Numbers 5:15:1). The water is holy "through being in the laver". Rashi gives the laver's history as the reason it is used here. It was made of the copper mirrors of the women who gathered at the Tent, women who had cherished their husbands' love in Egypt (Rashi on Numbers 5:17:1, citing Bamidbar Rabbah 9:14).
Two of Rashi's comments show what the classical reading thinks the ordeal is for. The priest presents the woman twice over. Rashi explains that they moved her about from place to place "in order to wear her out so that her thoughts should become confused" and she would confess (Rashi on Numbers 5:18:1, citing Sotah 8a). The adjuration then opens with the case of innocence rather than of guilt. The reason given is that "it is a duty in capital cases to begin the proceedings with the statement of something that bears upon the innocence of the accused" (Rashi on Numbers 5:19:1). He cites Sotah 17a, Shevuot 36a and Sanhedrin 33a. The rest is read closely. The oath contains the curse (Rashi on Numbers 5:21:1), and the grammar of the swelling and the falling is set out (Rashi on Numbers 5:22:1). The order of drinking and offering in the text runs ahead of the order of the rite (Rashi on Numbers 5:24:1). The effect reaches the whole body although only the belly and the thigh are named, "because they were the first to begin the sin" (Sifrei Bamidbar 18). At the waving her hand has to be above the hand of the priest (Rashi on Numbers 5:25:1, citing Sotah 19a). A Christian reader should take the shape of the reading whole. The classical commentators treat this as a court procedure whose verdict is left with God, and they build into it a path by which the woman may confess before the water is drunk. Ibn Ezra comments at 5:3:1, 5:4:1, 5:16:1 and 5:23:1, and Malbim at 5:1:1 and 5:5:1. The corpus carries no English text for either under its licence, so both stand here cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited here and never quoted. The Talmudic ones are fifteen, and they follow the two laws. On the sending out of the unclean stand Gittin 60a:17, Eruvin 104b:10 and Makkot 14b:6, with the entry the corpus prints as Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introduction to Halakhic Midrashim, Sifrei Numbers 470. On the restitution stand Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 1:1:4, Jerusalem Talmud Nazir 1:3:2, Bava Kamma 106a:16 and 110a:16, and Arakhin 28b:1 and 34a:6. On the ordeal stand Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 3:3:5 over the whole section, Avodah Zarah 37b:12, Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 38:6, and Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 1:5:2 and 4:4:3.
The midrashic locators run to twenty-five. Bamidbar Rabbah carries twenty-one of them, at 7:9, 8:1, 8:2, 8:5, 8:8, 9:16, 9:17, 9:20, 9:22, 9:24, 9:27, 9:39, 9:41, 9:44, 10:1, 10:2, 10:4, 10:25, 13:8, 13:19 and 13:20. Its ninth and tenth chapters run verse by verse through the ordeal from the meal offering to the woman's release. Four more stand alone: Midrash Lekach Tov on Numbers 5:4:1, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 9:12 in the Glick Edition, Sifra, Tazria Parashat Negaim, Chapter 12 14, and Sifrei Bamidbar 19:1. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Numbers 5:2:1 to 5:25:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Numbers 5:3:1 to 5:23:1, cited by ref because the licence Sefaria reports does not permit the text here; Malbim, Malbim on Numbers 5:1:1 and 5:5:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/numbers/5.json, the 15 Talmud and 25 Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Put the unclean outside the camp
Numbers 5:1-3
Chapters 1 to 4 set the camp around the tent, and the first ruling after them names who must stay outside it. Those with a skin disease, a discharge, or defilement by a dead body are sent away. Verse 3 grounds the rule in the camp itself, “where I dwell among them”, and Deuteronomy 23:14 gives the same reason for the same rule.
Numbers 5:1
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Jarchi says, what follows was said on the day the tabernacle was erected, but it seems rather to have been delivered after the several camps were formed, and the people numbered, when those that were unclean were ordered to be cast out of them: saying; as follows.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Numbers 5:1
“The general purpose of the directions given in this and the next chapter is to attest and to vindicate, by modes in harmony with the spirit of the theocratical law, the sanctity of the people of God. Thus, the congregation of Israel was made to typify the Church of God, within which, in its perfection, nothing that offends can be allowed to remain (compare Mat 8:22; Rev 21:27).”
Adam Clarke first gives the rule a physical ground, the spread of disease, and pictures a space behind each camp where the sick were housed. John Calvin answers that the list also includes a discharge and contact with a corpse, and he reads it as a lesson in purity. Clarke saw in it the first idea of a hospital.
Numbers 5:2
“Put out of the camp every leper - According to the preceding plan, it is sufficiently evident that each camp had a space behind it, and on one side, whither the infected might be removed, and where probably convenient places were erected for the accommodation of the infected; for we cannot suppose that they were driven out into the naked wilderness. But the expulsion mentioned here was founded, 1. On a purely physical reason, viz., the diseases were contagious, and therefore there was a necessity of putting those afflicted by them apart, that the infection might not be communicated.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:2
“They are generally obliged to wear a distinctive badge that people may know them at first sight and be warned to avoid them. Other means were adopted among the ancient Jews by putting their hand on their mouth and crying, "Unclean, unclean" [Le 13:45]. But their general treatment, as to exclusion from society, was the same as now described.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Male and female alike puts both sexes under the rule. John Wesley reads the defiled camp as a warning that uncleanness spreads from one person to those around him, and a call to keep apart from the wicked. Matthew Henry carries the rule to 1 Corinthians 5:13, where Paul tells the church to expel the wicked man from among them.
Numbers 5:3
“That they defile not the camp - By which God would intimate the danger of being made guilty by other mens sins, and the duty of avoiding intimate converse with wicked men.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 5:4-5
Israel obeys, and the verse says so twice over, which matches the closing line of the census at Numbers 4:49. Compliance is recorded steadily from chapter 1 through chapter 10, and the record breaks at 11:1, where the people complain and fire falls among them. For the man defiled by a dead body this chapter gives removal and no cleansing, and the water of separation that answers that case waits until Numbers 19.
Numbers 5:4
“And the children of Israel did so, and put them without the camp,.... Aben Ezra observes, that this was done immediately before they journeyed, and that those that were defiled journeyed between the standard of Ephraim and the standard of Dan; but this, he says, was by way of conjecture, since it is not expressed: as the Lord spake unto Moses, so did the children of Israel; they were obedient in this particular.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:4
“And the children of Israel - put them out - This is the earliest account we have of such separations; and probably this ordinance gave the first idea of a hospital, where all those who are afflicted with contagious disorders are put into particular wards, under medical treatment. Though no mention be made of the situation, circumstances, etc., of those expelled persons, we may certainly infer that they were treated with that humanity which their distressed state required.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Confess it, restore it, add a fifth
A new law opens, and Albert Barnes calls it a supplement to the trespass laws of Leviticus 5 and 6. John Gill takes it as spoken at the same sitting as the rule on the unclean. The camp is cleared of wrong as well as of defilement.
Numbers 5:5
“The law of restitution: a passage supplementary to Lev 5:5, etc., Lev 6:5, etc. Num 5:7 Recompense his trespass - i. e. make restitution to the person whom he has injured. Num 5:8 Whereby an atonement shall be made for him - literally, “which shall clear him of guilt as to it,” i. e. as to the trespass. Num 5:10 And every man’s hallowed things shall be his - i. e. the priest’s. The heave offerings Num 5:9 and dedicatory offerings (e. g. first-fruits) were to be the perquisite of the officiating priests.”
Numbers 5:6-7
Leviticus 6:1-5 already required full restitution plus a fifth for defrauding a neighbour. Numbers adds spoken confession, for the guilty one “must confess the sin he has committed”, which Adam Clarke reads as the condition of any hope of mercy. It also calls a wrong done to another an act done “unfaithfully against the LORD”, while the payment still goes “to the one he has wronged”.
Numbers 5:6
“Any sin that men commit - Hebrew. any sins of men, that is, sins against men, as deceits or wrongs, whereby other men are injured, of which he manifestly speaks. Against the Lord - Which words may be added, to shew that such injuries done to men are also sins against God, who hath commanded justice to men, as well as religion to himself.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Wesley gives the added fifth two purposes. It paid the owner for the time he went without his goods, and it stood as a penalty to deter others. Matthew Henry holds that the guilt stayed on a man as long as he kept what he had taken, whatever he offered.
Numbers 5:7
“Shall confess their sin - Without confession or acknowledgment of sin, there was no hope of mercy held out. He shall recompense - For without restitution, in every possible case, God will not for give the iniquity of a man’s sin. How can any person in a case of defraud, with his neighbor’s property in his possession, expect to receive mercy from the hand of a just and holy God? See this subject considered in the notes on Gen 42:38 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The Hebrew behind “relative” is the redeemer’s word, used of Boaz at Ruth 3:12 and of the avenger of blood at Numbers 35:12. When no relative is left to be paid, the debt passes to God, for “the restitution belongs to the LORD and must be given to the priest”. Adam Clarke passes on the Jewish reading that this means a stranger, since every Israelite has kin among the tribes.
Numbers 5:8
“If the man have no kinsman - The Jews think that this law respects the stranger and the sojourner only, because every Israelite is in a state of affinity to all the rest; but there might be a stranger in the camp who has no relative in any of the tribes of Israel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 5:9-11
Verse 9 rules that what the people bring “to the priest shall belong to him”, and the payment of verse 8 falls under that rule. Albert Barnes reads verse 10 of the priest serving that day, and Matthew Henry reads it as pay following work. The priests held no land, as Numbers 18:20 states, so what came in at the tent was their living.
Numbers 5:9
“And every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel,.... Of the holy sacrifices brought by them to be offered up; that part of them which is elevated, heaved, or waved, as the heave shoulder and wave breast: which they bring unto the priest, shall be his; what they bring to him to offer for them shall be his who performs the service, even that part of them which is his due.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:9
“The other priests should not come in sharers with that priest who then officiated, and to whom the hallowed thing, whatever it was, was given. Let him that was most ready and diligent in attending fare the better for it: if he do the work, let him have the pay, and much good may it do him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry reads the verse as binding a giver to his gift, so nothing given to a priest could be recalled in a fit of vexation. John Wesley applies it to things devoted to God that could never go on an altar, such as a house. Such gifts became the priest's.
Numbers 5:10
“Every man's hallowed things - Understand this not of the sacrifices, because these were not the priest's peculiar, but part of them was offered to God, and the remainder was eaten by the offerer as well as by the priest; but of such other things as were devoted to God, and could not be offered in sacrifice; as suppose a man consecrated an house to the Lord, this was to be the priest's.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Bitter water for a jealous husband
Verse 11 opens the longest law in the chapter. Albert Barnes holds that Moses took up a trial already known across the ancient world, and he cites an Egyptian story from the age of Rameses. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report the view that the law took the custom over to free it from idolatrous rites.
Numbers 5:11
“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 5:12-14
If any man’s wife go aside: Verse 13 sets a case that evidence cannot reach, since “there is no witness against her and she was not caught in the act”. The death penalties of Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22 require proof, so they cannot touch it. Verse 14 states the case twice, once where she has defiled herself and once where she has not, so the law allows that the husband may be wrong.
Numbers 5:12
“If a man's wife - This law was given partly to deter wives from adulterous practices, and partly to secure wives against the rage of their hard-hearted husbands, who otherwise might upon mere suspicions destroy them, or at least put them away.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Matthew Henry passes on the Jewish rule that a husband first had to warn his wife before witnesses to avoid a named man. If she was later found alone with that man, he could bring her to the priest. Henry notes that the law leaves the proof open.
The verse's second half allows for an innocent wife. John Wesley reads the rite as protection for her in part, since a hard-hearted husband could otherwise kill or divorce her on suspicion alone. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown likewise call it a guard against hasty and groundless suspicion.
Numbers 5:14
“The spirit of jealousy - רוח קנאה ruach kinah, either a supernatural diabolic influence, exciting him to jealousy, or the passion or affection of jealousy, for so the words may be understood.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The grain offering of Leviticus 2:1-2 carries oil and frankincense, but here the husband “is not to pour oil over it or put frankincense on it”. This matches the poor man’s sin offering of Leviticus 5:11, and barley flour is brought nowhere else in the law. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the plain offering as fitting a woman under accusation, its memorial serving “as a reminder of iniquity”.
Numbers 5:15
“But on the occasion referred to, both these ingredients were to be excluded, partly because it was a solemn appeal to God in distressing circumstances, and partly because it was a sin offering on the part of the wife, who came before God in the character of a real or suspected offender.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:15
“If she did, she was not put to death, (which must have been, if it had been proved against her) but only was divorced and lost her dowry. Her offering - By way of solemn appeal to God, whom hereby she desired to judge between her and her husband, and by way of atonement to appease God, who had for her sins stirred up her husband against her.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 5:16-18
The priest puts “holy water in a clay jar”, words found nowhere else in Scripture, and adds “dust from the tabernacle floor”. The text gives no reason for the dust, and Adam Clarke suggests the crime’s baseness, while John Gill reports the rabbinic ruling that the jar was new. The priest is to “let down her hair”, which Clarke reads as public shame and links with 1 Corinthians 11:5-6.
Numbers 5:16
“And the priest shall bring her near,.... Or "offer it", as the Vulgate Latin version, that is, the offering of jealousy: and set her before the Lord; or "it", the offering; for which the Tigurine version is more express,"let the priest offer that sacrifice, and set that before the Lord,''for the setting of the woman before the Lord is spoken of in Num 5:18.”
Commentators read the dust in two ways. John Wesley and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take it as an emblem of vileness and misery, and Wesley adds that dust from the holy floor struck deeper fear into a guilty woman. Matthew Henry takes it as honour paid to the place and connects it with Jesus writing on the ground at John 8:6.
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. See at Num 5:31 (note). 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.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The grain offering goes into her own hands, and John Wesley reads that as the woman herself calling God to witness. For the loosened hair, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see the loss of her husband's protection, and Wesley a token of sorrow. The priest holds the water.
Numbers 5:18
“Uncover the woman’s head - To take off a woman’s veil, and expose her to the sight of men, would be considered a very great degradation in the East. To this St. Paul appears to allude, 1Co 11:5, 1Co 11:6,1Co 11:10.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 5:19-20
The oath comes in two halves, and the acquittal comes first: “may you be immune to this bitter water that brings a curse”. Verse 20 then states the guilty case in a heap of terms, “gone astray”, “defiled yourself” and “lain carnally with a man”, which John Gill reads as closing every evasion. The priest speaks and the woman listens, and her own words wait until verse 22.
Numbers 5:19
“And the priest shall charge her by an oath,.... Or give her her oath: and say unto the woman, if no man hath lain with thee: besides her husband: and thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband; which is but another phrase expressive of the same thing, the sin of adultery: be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse; if this is the case, it shall produce no bitter effects, or bring any curse upon thee.”
The guilty half of the oath breaks off at the end of this verse, and verse 21 steps in with the priest's curse before the words resume. Matthew Henry reasons that a guilty woman who heard this and still drank had chosen to defy God's justice over confessing. The sentence is finished by the curse.
Numbers 5:20
“But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband,.... Gone aside from the paths of modesty and chastity, and betook herself to another man's bed instead of her husband's: and if thou be defiled, by committing adultery: and some man hath lain with thee beside thy husband; these phrases are all synonymous, and a heap of words are made use of to express the sin, and that there might be no evasion of it, and that it might be clear what was intended, this being said on oath.”
Numbers 5:21-22
The word “Amen” first appears in Scripture here, doubled, in the mouth of a woman accepting a curse on her own body. The next time a whole nation says it is Deuteronomy 27:15-26, where Israel answers Amen to twelve curses. Adam Clarke uses Jeremiah 29:22 to show that “an attested curse among your people” is a name other people use when they swear.
Numbers 5:21
“The Lord make thee a curse and an oath - Let thy name and punishment be remembered and mentioned as an example and terror to all others. Like that mentioned Jer 29:22, Jer 29:23: “The Lord make thee like Zedekiah, and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire, because they have committed villany in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives.” - Ainsworth.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:21
“To rot - Hebrew. to fall, that is, to die or waste away. To swell - Suddenly and violently till it burst, which the Jews note was frequent in this case. And it was a clear evidence of the truth of their religion.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Amen, amen: Two readings of the double Amen stand in the older commentaries. John Wesley and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the repetition as the woman's pledge of innocence, while Matthew Henry reports those who give one Amen to each half of the oath. Either way, she accepts both outcomes.
Numbers 5:22
“Thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot - What is meant by these expressions cannot be easily ascertained. לנפל ירך lanpel yarech signifies literally thy thigh to fall. As the thigh, feet, etc., were used among the Hebrews delicately to express the parts which nature conceals, (see Gen 46:26), the expression here is probably to be understood in this sense; and the falling down of the thigh here must mean something similar to the prolapsus uteri, or falling down of the womb, which might be a natural effect of the preternatural distension of the abdomen.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 5:23-24
And the priest shall write these curses in a book: The curses are written “on a scroll” and washed off “into the bitter water”, so the words enter her with what she drinks. Adam Clarke reports the rabbinic view that the ink held no iron, so the writing would lift clean off. Matthew Henry holds that the water carried the curse only where there was guilt, since verse 24 says “it will enter her and cause her bitter suffering”.
Numbers 5:23
“And the priest shall write these curses in a book,.... The above curses imprecated on herself by an oath; the words and the letters of them were written at length, in a scroll of parchment; and, as some say also, her name, but not her double amen to them (y): and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: wash them out with it, and into it, or scrape them off of the parchment into it. (y) Misnah, ut supra, (Sotah, c. 2) sect. 3.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:23
“The priest shall write these curses - and he shall blot them out - It appears that the curses which were written down with a kind of ink prepared for the purpose, as some of the rabbins think, without any calx of iron or other material that could make a permanent dye, were washed off the parchment into the water which the woman was obliged to drink, so that she drank the very words of the execration.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry passes on the Jewish account of what happened at this point. A woman who confessed before drinking had the water poured out, and she was divorced without her dowry. One who refused both was made to drink.
Numbers 5:24
“The bitter water that causeth the curse - Though the rabbins think that the priest put some bitter substance in the water, yet as nothing of the kind is intimated by Moses, we may consider the word as used here metaphorically for affliction, death, etc. These waters were afflicting and deadly to her who drank them, being guilty. In this sense afflictions are said to be bitter, Isa 38:17; so also is death, 1Sa 15:32: Ecc 7:26.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 5:25-26
The drinking is commanded at verse 24 and again at verse 26, after the waving and the burned handful. John Gill and Keil and Delitzsch read verse 24 as the outcome stated in advance and verses 25 and 26 as the order the priest follows, though the sequence has been read both ways. The handful burned “as a memorial portion” repeats Leviticus 2:2, here without oil or frankincense.
Matthew Henry reports that the rest of the barley went to the priest to eat, and was scattered among the ashes when the husband was himself a priest. He reads the burning in the middle of the rite as the point where the whole case is laid before God, from whom no secret is hid. The drinking follows the altar.
Numbers 5:27-28
The text names no power in the water, dust and ink and states only the two results, which leaves the verdict with God. Adam Clarke takes the bitterness as affliction, and Matthew Henry passes on Bishop Patrick for an effect seen at once and John Lightfoot for one that took years. The clean woman gains more than acquittal, for she “will be unaffected and able to conceive children”.
Numbers 5:27
“Bishop Patrick says, from some of the Jewish writers, that the effect of these waters appeared immediately, she grew pale, and her eyes ready to start out of her head. Dr. Lightfoot says that sometimes it appeared not for two or three years, but she bore no children, was sickly, languished, and rotted at last; it is probable that some indications appeared immediately.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The Jewish writers went further than the verse. John Wesley reports their claim that an innocent wife bore children even if she had been barren, and Matthew Henry their claim that she came out healthier and bore a son. Henry draws from the verse that God clears the innocent in His own way.
Numbers 5:28
“From the whole we may learn, (1.) That secret sins are known to God, and sometimes are strangely brought to light in this life; however, there is a day coming when God will, by Jesus Christ, as here by the priest, judge the secrets of men according to the gospel, Rom. ii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 5:29-31
Adam Clarke calls this the most singular law in the Pentateuch and notes that many nations tried the accused by fire, poison or water. Israel’s trial carries no bodily hazard, since the woman swallows only water, dust and ink. Verse 31 says the husband “will be free from guilt”, while Deuteronomy 22:13-19 fines a husband a hundred shekels for slandering his wife, and the two laws stand side by side.
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 offenses 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.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:29
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
John Gill holds that once the husband had brought her, only her own confession could halt the process. Matthew Henry passes on the rabbinic teaching that the water failed when the husband had been unfaithful himself, and that the rite fell out of use as adultery spread. He connects that with Hosea 4:14.
Numbers 5:30
“Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife,.... See Gill on Num 5:14, and shall set the woman before the Lord; has carried the matter so far as to bring his wife to the priest or civil magistrate, and declare his suspicion, and the ground of it: and the priest shall execute upon her all this law; he shall proceed according to the law, and perform every rite and ceremony required; nor could any stop be put to it, unless the woman owned she was defiled.”
Adam Clarke reads her iniquity as the penalty named at verse 22, the swelling and the wasting. John Wesley widens it to a wife whose careless conduct gave her husband cause for suspicion. The husband stood cleared whatever the outcome.
Numbers 5:31
“Whereas now, whatsoever the consequence is, the husband shall not be censured for bringing such curses upon her, or for defaming her, if she appear to be innocent. Her iniquity - That is, the punishment of her iniquity, whether she was false to her husband, or by any light carriage gave him occasion to suspect her.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Law, three rulings for the sanctity of the camp, each opened by its own word from the LORD, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Three separate words from the LORD | The chapter is three rulings rather than one, and each is opened by its own speech formula at verses 1, 5 and 11. The third opening is the longest unit in the chapter and the only ordeal the law of Moses prescribes. | Numbers 5:1, Numbers 5:5, Numbers 5:11 |
| The law opened and closed on the same clause | Verse 12 opens the ruling with a wife who goes astray and is unfaithful to her husband. Verse 29 closes it by naming the law of jealousy for a wife who goes astray and defiles herself. The repetition stands in the Berean text at both verses and marks the limits of the unit. | Numbers 5:12, Numbers 5:29 |
| The offence named in a series | Verse 20 states the guilty case in a heap of terms rather than one: gone astray, defiled yourself, lain with a man other than your husband. John Gill reads the piling of synonyms as deliberate, made so that there might be no evasion of the charge and that it might be clear what was meant, since this was said on oath.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Numbers 5:20. | Numbers 5:13, Numbers 5:20 |
| The water that brings a curse | One phrase carries the rite from the oath to the verdict, and the Berean text repeats it at verses 18, 19, 22, 23, 24 and 27. Adam Clarke takes the word bitter here in the sense of affliction rather than of taste, and points to Isaiah 38:17 and 1 Samuel 15:32 for the same usage.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 5:24. | Numbers 5:18, Numbers 5:19, Numbers 5:22, Numbers 5:23, Numbers 5:24, Numbers 5:27 |
| The oath put in two halves, the acquittal first | Verse 19 states the innocent case and its outcome, and verse 20 states the guilty case in the same shape, so the two halves answer one another line for line. John Gill reads the first half as the priest telling her outright that the water will produce no bitter effects if this is the case.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Numbers 5:19. | Numbers 5:19, Numbers 5:20 |
The ordeal of the bitter water, and the positions held on it
14 more paragraphs on the patterns
This is the one ordeal the law of Moses prescribes, and it is the passage of the chapter a reader today meets hardest. The positions below are set out with the holder of each, and each is given at its own strength.
What is in the cup. The vessel holds water from the laver, dust from the tabernacle floor, and the ink of the curse washed off the page. Adam Clarke sets aside the rabbinic suggestion that a bitter substance was added, since nothing of the kind is stated by Moses. He takes the word bitter in the sense of affliction and death, as Isaiah 38:17, 1 Samuel 15:32 and Ecclesiastes 7:26 use it (Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 5:24). On that reading nothing in the cup can harm anyone, and any consequence comes from God directly. Matthew Henry reaches the same place from the text's own wording. He holds that the water carried the curse only where there was guilt, since verse 24 has it becoming bitter after it enters her (Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Numbers 5:24).
When the effect was seen. Matthew Henry reports two Jewish traditions that disagree. From Bishop Patrick, out of some of the Jewish writers, the effect appeared at once, so that she grew pale and her eyes were ready to start out of her head. From Dr. Lightfoot, it sometimes did not appear for two or three years, and in the meantime she bore no children, was sickly, languished and rotted at last. Henry himself holds it probable that some indications appeared immediately (Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Numbers 5:27). The two readings differ on the timing and agree that the outcome was visible in the body.
What the curse describes. John Wesley reads the Hebrew behind the word rendered rot as fall, meaning to die or waste away. He reads the swelling as sudden and violent, which he says the Jews note was frequent in this case (Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Numbers 5:21). Adam Clarke reads the same clause as a delicacy of expression, since the thigh and the feet are used in Hebrew for the parts nature conceals, as at Genesis 46:26. He suggests the falling of the thigh describes something like a prolapse of the womb following the distension of the abdomen (Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 5:22). Both hold the language to be physical, and they differ on how far the wording can be pressed.
What the law was for. John Wesley holds that the law was given for two purposes together. It was given partly to deter wives from adultery and partly to secure wives against the rage of hard-hearted husbands. Those husbands might otherwise on mere suspicion destroy them or at least put them away (Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Numbers 5:12). On that reading the ruling is a restraint on the husband as much as a test of the wife. He must bring the matter to the priest in public rather than settle it at home. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown put the weight on the other side. They hold that proved adultery already carried death. They hold that this law made provision for the conviction of the guilty person in cases that could only be suspected (Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Numbers 5:29). On that reading the ruling closes a gap in enforcement.
Whether Israel borrowed the form. Albert Barnes holds that this mode of trial, like several other ordinances, was adopted by Moses from existing institutions that were probably very ancient and widely spread. He points to an Egyptian story set in the time of Rameses the Great. He gives it as an illustration of the manners of the period (Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Numbers 5:11). Adam Clarke runs the influence the other way. He holds that this law seems to have been copied by almost all the nations of the earth, civilized and barbarian alike. It was copied wherever complete evidence was wanting and the deity worshipped was expected to intervene for the sake of justice (Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 5:29). Clarke also calls the rite here the most ancient case of trial by ordeal (Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 5:17).
What the comparison shows is a difference in the risk. The laws of Hammurabi sent an accused woman into the river, and drowning was the verdict of guilt; that evidence is collected in James B. Pritchard, editor, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, and the comparison is set out for students in Gordon J. Wenham, Numbers (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries). In this chapter the woman swallows water, dust and ink, and the text names no mechanism at all. It states the two outcomes and leaves the verdict with God rather than with the priest or with a court.
What the clean woman receives. Verse 28 gives more than an acquittal. She is unaffected and able to conceive children, so the ruling ends by restoring her standing in the household it was called to test.
What the husband carries. Verse 31 clears the husband of guilt for bringing the case. John Wesley reads that as meaning he is not to be censured for the curses brought on her. He is not to be censured for defaming her if she proves innocent (Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Numbers 5:31). Deuteronomy 22:13 to 19 stands in the same canon. It fines a husband a hundred shekels of silver for slandering his wife and bars him from ever divorcing her, so the two laws stand side by side and neither cancels the other. John Wesley also records the tradition that a woman found guilty by this rite was not put to death, which proof would have required. She was divorced and lost her dowry (Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Numbers 5:15).
The offering that goes with it
The offering at verse 15 is a tenth of an ephah of barley flour with no oil poured on it and no frankincense laid on it. The ordinary grain offering of Leviticus 2:1 and 2:2 has both. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the omission as fitting the occasion. It was a solemn appeal to God in distressing circumstances. It was a sin offering on the part of a wife who came before God as a real or a suspected offender (Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Numbers 5:15). Barley meal is brought for this offering and for no other in the law, and the memorial that ordinarily rises as a pleasing aroma here brings iniquity to remembrance.
Two words that enter Scripture in this chapter
The word rendered relative at verse 8 is the redeemer's word. It stands behind Boaz at Ruth 3:12 and behind the avenger of blood at Numbers 35:12. One term covers the man who buys back a relative's land and the man who pursues a relative's killer. Adam Clarke passes on the Jewish reading that the case of verse 8 concerns a stranger in the camp. The reason given is that an Israelite would have kin somewhere among the tribes (Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 5:8).
Amen enters Scripture at verse 22, in the mouth of a woman swearing to a curse laid on her own body, and she doubles it. The next place a whole nation says it is Deuteronomy 27:15 to 26, where Israel answers Amen to twelve curses called out from Ebal.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 5:29; Albert Barnes and This site's published guide to Numbers, src/components/book/guides/numbers/NumbersGuide.tsx, the three movements with their spans.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.