Trial by Ordeal in Numbers 5:11-31

by
Tyler Vela
OT508 Genesis Through Joshua
Submitted to Dr. Richard Blecher

Introduction
Trial by Ordeal was not uncommon in the Ancient Near Eastern literature. This common literary
motif was ubiquitous not only in myth and fiction in which the hero would undergo some death defying
examination in order to be deemed worthy, but it also was found in legal codes where people suspected of
some odious act were tested to reveal their guilt or innocence. It should not be surprising then, in one
sense, for us to find such texts within the pages of the Bible. For this paper I will explore the law
regarding the Trial by Ordeal of the wife suspected of adultery in Numbers 5:11-31. The scope of this
paper does not allow me to cover issues regarding the relationship of the Bible to other Ancient texts
other than a simple notation of similarities and discontinuities. Whether these similarities ought to be
regarded as plagiarism or polemics, or something else entirely, will be left to other more capable minds.
In this paper I will examine the composition and placement of the text as it is found in the book of
Numbers, the historical context of the law, provide an expository treatment of some of the features of the
law, why this text is still important to the modern Christian church and finally present an analysis of the
Christological fulfillment of the law.

Placement in the Text

Commentators have long speculated about not only the placement of the passage within the book
of Numbers, but also how the text came to arrive in its present form. Here we will see not only the
coherence of the text within the flow of Numbers but also that this text reveals a unified tradition that is
ancient and authentic rather than a post-exilic contrivance.
Firstly, we must address the question of why this text is placed where it is in the flow of
Numbers. Wenham states in his commentary, As often in Numbers, it is not immediately apparent what
this law has to do with its context. It seems out of place in a section concerned with purifying the camp
and the people, (Wenham 1981, 80). However, as Wenham goes on to explain and other commentators
have been in agreement, the placement of the passage where it is in Numbers 5 is discernible upon careful
scrutiny. Numbers 5 presents a set of laws regarding the cleanliness of the camp and the Israelites within

the camp, and the suspicion of adultery as well as the jealousy that such suspicion can arouse, are
detrimental to not only the family, but the nation as a whole. When a husband, instead of loving and
protecting his wife, proceeds to defame her, he introduces instability not only into his own domestic life,
but also into the whole nation, writes Kaiser, (Kaiser 1983, 223). The overall movement of the chapter
can be seen in its progression from more open and obvious forms of uncleanliness to more personal and
hidden forms. Thus we have the progression from laws regarding visible, physical marks (vv. 1-4), to
visible but non-physical marks of marred public relationships (vv. 5-10) to finally the most intimate and
private of relationships, the marital bed (vv. 11-31). Infidelity was not considered a personal or private
matter as it is often viewed today in the West, but something that could bring uncleanliness into the
congregation as mentioned above. This is due in large measure to the fact that adultery was not viewed as
merely a breech in contract between the husband and the wife, but also a breach of faith between the
congregation and God. This is why protocol was needed in Numbers for not only restitution but also
decontamination. It is in this context of ceremonial purity that we will best understand the law as it is
presented to us.
Second are the issues regarding the composition of the text itself. Here the old clich that an
ounce of fact is worth of pound of presumption seems to ring true. The majority of critical scholars
apparently agree that this passage belongs to the supplementary stratum but draws on ancient traditions,
(Budd 1984, 62). This is for several reasons. Budd argues that not only is the grain offering of Leviticus 2
secondary to the ritual and presupposed by the author, but he also claims that it has little to no connection
with the laws immediately surrounding it. B. Stade argued that the law is too disjointed to have been
composed originally as a single unit. He noted for his evidence the repetition of the woman being brought
before Yahweh (vv. 16, 18), the duplication of the oath (vv. 19, 21) and that she apparently twice drinks
the water (vv. 24, 26-27). Moreover he argued that v 20 is incomplete in that it does not finish the
consequences of falling under the curse but leaves it unstated, and that v 22 seems to explicitly reiterate v
21, (Budd 1984, 62). Other text critical theories such as those of Holzinger, Press, Rendtorff and others,
all try to resolve these apparent conflicts within the text by appealing to a redacted text which fused

together multiple sources. Here I do not have the space to treat each one individually but the problems
with source critical theories which have beeng long argued by conservative scholars seem sufficient
enough to stifle such analyses of the text.
M. Noth argues in a different direction by trying to get back to the earliest literary tradition. In
order to do this he supposes a synthesis of three different kinds of narratives regarding divine judgment,
(Noth 1969, 49). For Noth, the importance is not necessarily how the text came to be but rather that the
text is ancient, likely representing P material due to its reference to the Tabernacle in v 17 and its
allusions to the priestly rituals regarding offerings of Lev. 1-4. Noth himself admits however that the three
kinds of divine judgments he sees behind the text have become so amalgamated that they are no longer be
separated as literary units, something which seems rather convenient to his theory.
On this point R.K. Harrison is particularly helpful, (Harrison 1992, 117-118). Rather than trying
to resolve the textual irregularities by appealing to unknown (and in the case of Noth, unknowable)
sources, Harrison points us to the fact that the text is really not all that irregular by the standards of
ancient Semitic writing. He notes that without an understanding of this literary style it may appear that the
woman is made to stand before Yahweh twice, drank the water twice or three times, or swore the oath
twice and that the ritual may seem to be three distinct rituals merged into one ceremony, namely, the grain
offering, the drink offering and the swearing of an oath. He adds that the presumption of modern critical
scholarship is not without its historical precedent. The Mishna, in the treatise Tractate Sotah, furnished
copious amounts of conjectural accretions such as the woman being able to opt out of the ritual at certain
parts, the manner in which the curse was composed on the leather scroll, and various outcomes of the
curse on the woman.

Here Harrison includes the source critical theories in the same family of

presumption by positing multiple fractured and hypothetical, though interesting, sources. He seems to
find the theses of Fishbane, Milgrom and Frymer-Kensky to be stimulating but ultimately fruitless.
Harrison himself adopts the view that the text is best explained by appeal to a common Semitic literary
device known as repetitive summary, whereby the author uses repetition at different points in a narrative
to help identity and separate materials that are descriptive or prescriptive, (Harrison 1992, 118). For

Harrison the material is intentionally repetitive and to illustrate this, he uses the problem of the multiple
instances of the woman drinking the soiled water. Rather than vv. 24, 26, 27 describing three drinks from
the bowl, v 24 shows that the priest is the agent God uses to administer the test when the water is given
while v 26 restates the same event to show that the priest is the one who facilitates the offering and thus is
permitted to dispense the water to the woman, and v 27 reiterates the drinking event to show what may
happen to the woman who drinks from the soiled water handed to her by the priest. For Harrison the
repetition is intentional and complex and is indicative not only that the priests would have viewed the
ceremony as important, but also that the ceremony has marks of being primitive because it has not been
smoothed out. If the text had been redacted from multiple sources, we should expect the redactor to do a
better job smoothing over such rough edges at the seams.
Wenham takes a similar approach but rather than seeing a tripartite form, he sees a bifurcation of
the law into two parts, (Wenham 1981, 81). Elsewhere in his commentary he deals with the two part
division of the law immediately preceding our text (5:5-10) and the law directly after it (6:1-21) and so he
sees this law in vv 11-31 as conforming to that pattern. For Wenham the division falls along the two
possible outcomes: the woman is guilty but the husband has no proof of it (vv 12-14a, 27, 29) or the
woman is in fact innocent and her husbands suspicions against here are unjustified (vv 14b, 28, 30) and
what fills the middle is the procedure which would be the same in either case (vv 15-26). He summarizes
his position by stating, This section makes good sense as it stands. It is unnecessary to postulate the
presence of two sources here... Elsewhere it is typical Hebrew style, which may anticipate or resume a
point out of strict chronological sequence, (Wenham 1981, 81).
One more question can be added to this discussion. One may wonder, even if the text is to be read
as demanding that the woman stand before God two times, drink two or three times and swear the oath
twice, why should this lead to the position that the text itself is undergirded by either multiple texts, an
unknowable amalgamation of divine judgment views or even a complex literary structure used to
highlight the role of the priest? Should we suppose that any time we have a complex ritual where an
action is repeated that it is thus a later redaction of multiple sources? Some commentators have noted the

similarities between this trial by ordeal and the modern lie detector test. Why should we not think that the
ancient, like the modern lie detector, should not require an action be performed multiple times, or a
statement repeated for the gravity of it, or to insist that the pressure of the situation be felt by the
participates with greater force each time they repeated part of it? Why should the woman not be supposed
to stand before the Lord twice if, during this time, it is assumed that the Lord is present among his people
and that whenever one approaches the Tabernacle that one approaches Yahweh himself? I see no reason
to assume that presumption is to be preferred over a simple reading of the text as it is without some good
reason to do so.

Historical Context
Commentators have not only vigorously debated the literary context and structure of the passage
but also the historical context in which the composition of the passage is to be understood. Here Budd
argues for a probable late date of composition of this particular part of the text, particularly a post-exilic
context, (Budd 1984, 66). For Budd, this is viewed through the lens of the assumption that the law served
as a means for the priests to regain (or gain, depending on ones view of when the priestly caste had its
genesis) some kind of bureaucratic standing in the community after the return from exile. He argues that
prior to the monarchy, the priests would have been the ones primarily responsible with governing and
ruling over civil matters and matters of fortune (such as employing the Urim and Thummim, or lotcasting in Josh. 7:16-18 and 1 Sam. 14:38-2). However after the rise of the monarchy, apparently hard
cases would no longer be heard by the priests but by the king (2 Sam. 15:1-6; 1 Kgs 3:16-22). What this
means for post-exile Israel is that there was no bureaucracy set up in order to hear and weigh the evidence
for these hard cases and so, says Budd, it is possible that a return to a more traditional means of
determining matters, not by evidence and law but by fortune and chance, was to be preferred. These kinds
of ordeals may have been used in a much broader settings, not in the temple (which no longer stood) or
the tabernacle but in districts by whatever local priest was present. This opened up Israel to instability and
corruption and so the author of Numbers may have wanted to limit the application of the ordeal to a

particular kind of case (suspected adultery that did not meet the evidentiary standards for a capital
offense) and to bring it back under the supervision of the Levites to consolidate their power in Jerusalem.
For Budd, this best explains the over specificity in the casuistic formulas of vv 12-14 and the introduction
of a grain offering into the ritual to ensure that it could only occur in Jerusalem by a Levitical priest.
Harrison and others however tend to see a much more primitive historical setting to this law.
Even critical scholars such as Noth view comments about the Tabernacle, rather than the temple, to be
evidence that this comes not from a post-exilic period but rather from a period before the exile. It is also
important to note here that these trials by ordeal were not unusual in the Ancient Near East and need not
be seen as a later development.
We will now turn our attention briefly to the continuities and discontinuities between the trial by
ordeal found in Numbers 5 with others found in the literature of the surrounding nations. The

Code

of

Hammurabi in the 18th century B.C. contains two laws that are relevant for our discussion here. They are:
CH 131: If a seigniors wife was accused by her husband, but she was not caught while lying with
another man, she shall make affirmation by god and return to her house.
CH 132: If the finger was pointed at the wife of a seignior because of another man, but she has
not been caught while lying with another man, she shall throw herself into the river for the sake
of the husband, (Allen 1990, 743).
In CH 132 the woman is accused by someone else in her community of being unfaithful to her husband
and is to throw herself into the sacred Euphrates River and the assumption is that if she is guilty she will
drown, but if she is innocent she will be kept safe and her husband must hold her guiltless. This is unlike
the Biblical text in many ways as we will see, so it is CH 131that is much more analogous to what we find
in Numbers. In this case, it is the womans own husband who suspects his wife of infidelity and brings
charges against her. Her response is to go to the temple and present herself before god to swear a solemn
oath and then return home. The text is silent on whether or not the woman could or could not fail to give
the oath or what consequences would be for an oath spoken in deceit.

Another text is the Mari text from Northwestern Mesopotamia. In this inscription it is actually the
gods themselves who are made to drink water mixed with the dirt taken from one of the city gates. The
text shows that this bound the gods in an oath to protect the city, (Walton 2000, 145).
While some similarities may be noted between our text and those of the surrounding nations
(such as the use of water, presenting oneself before a deity and the swearing of an oath) the
discontinuities are insurmountably vast in their scope. Firstly, the warp and woof of a typical ancient trial
by ordeal was the presumption of guilt and the need to prove ones innocence before the deities and the
people. We can see this by the fact that most ordeals were designed to be potentially fatal, such as
throwing oneself into a rushing river, being lit on fire, or swallowing an otherwise deadly poison. The
idea was that the person was guilty unless the deity intervened and delivered the person from the grips up
death, thus vindicating them as innocent, (Walton 2000, 145). Some have argued that the differences were
for practical reasons. An example of this would be R. de Vaux who suspects that the moderation of the
practice in Israel from fatal to non-lethal was due in large part to geography, that is, that there was no
river dangerous enough in Palestine to make the trials really all that dangerous, (de Vaux 1997, 158). This
does not explain, however, why they did not then opt for fire or poison. In any event, there is stark
contrast between the ordeals we find in Mesopotamia, for example, with those of Israel. The woman
accused of adultery is not submitted to a test that puts her life in danger just by the act of partaking in the
ordeal, that is, the elements are not in and of themselves potentially fatal to the defendant. Thompson in
fact notes that this trial in Israel was much more likely to result in an innocent verdict, whereas the pagan
rituals would be much more likely to result in a death, or a guilty verdict, (Thompson 1984, 176). Here
the procedure and the elements themselves do not invoke magic but rather set up the conditions whereby
it will be apparent to the congregation what God already knows whether or not the woman is innocent
or guilty.
A further disparity between the Israelite law and those surrounding them can be drawn from this.
It is precisely that this law does not presume the woman guilty that it can be seen not as merely a
chauvinistic or brutal practice of a male dominated society. Here the question is often asked why a

woman cannot bring her husband up on the same charge. One possible answer is that there is nothing that
says she cannot. While that may be the subtext of the law, such casuistic laws are meant to be exemplary
and not necessarily exhaustive of all possible applications. Another aspect of this is that in a male
dominated society such laws would essentially function as a guardian of women who would have
otherwise been crushed by forceful husbands who were prone to jealous rage. Although modern sexual
ethics have become exceptionally and progressively more permissive than they have been in the past and
views about marital infidelity often fall in the range of a mere personal matter, fidelity to marriage was
one of the utmost virtues in the ancient world and to protect it was of paramount importance as a
foundation of community life. A husband was not only seen as the protector of his own virtue, but the
virtue of the entire family. This is why when a woman was suspected of committing adultery action, was
demanded by the community itself. Even in Babylon it appears to have been the expectation that a
neighbor who suspected his neighbors wife of infidelity must bring suit against her. Yet imagine that no
such law was in place and a husband was wantonly jealous or even sought permissible ways to divorce
his wife. Deuteronomy 22:13-19 tell us that a husband who had lost interest in his wife was not permitted
to falsely accuse his wife of not being a virgin prior to marriage. This was supposed to be found out by
the habit of the parents of the bride to keep the bridal sheets as evidence of her virginity. We also know
that a wife could not be found guilty of adultery without either the evidence of multiple witnesses or by
being caught in the act. This means that a husband was quite literally married for life either the rest of
his or hers. This law, coupled with those mentioned in Deuteronomy, was set in place to protect women
from being used and abused only to be cast to one side by a husband who no longer felt the desire to serve
and protect her. A husband who wanted out could not simply accuse her of infidelity either without the
required evidence or without being willing to stand before God and the congregation and put his jealousy
to the test as much as his wife. In the eyes of the Israelites this would not be unfair to the wife because the
innocent woman would have nothing to fear from this ordeal, save the expected normal trepidation of
coming before a holy God. Yet in this case, though she was to come humbly before God with offering in
hand, she could be assured that the God who knew all would vindicate her from all false accusations. This

was not a kangaroo court but a hearing presided over by an omniscient God. The only women who were
to fear the ordeal were ones who had committed adultery and were about to fall under the curse of the
living God. So this ordeal was not so much a means of suppressing women, but protecting the innocent
ones while banning the unclean ones from among the assembly.
A note should also be made here that in Israel the expectation was not that the materials used in
the ceremony were magically imbued with the power to judge. It is clear from the act of standing before
Yahweh, of making on offering to him, and from the words of the curse declared by the priest, that it is
Yahweh who will bring about the outcome. The elements had no ex opera operato efficacy associated
with them, (Harrison 1992, 112). Wenham adds to this, by comparison to prayer, that whether the
potion was effective in making a guilty woman sterile no more depends on magic than does intercessory
prayer. Prayer and symbolic rituals both depend ultimately on the will of God for their efficacy,
(Wenham 1981, 83).
We will now turn our attention to an exposition of the law and what was expected for those who
were to partake in the ordeal.

Exposition
The content of the law is as sharply contested as the debates over the composition of the text
itself. To make matters worse, the law does not lend itself well to easy or simple summary. What follows
is an interaction with several of the contentious points of the law rather than a detailed treatment of the
law as a whole. It will do, however, to borrow from Wenham his outline of the law and the ceremony that
it prescribes, (Wenham 1981, 81). Wenham breaks down the law as follows:
1. The suspicious husband brings his wife and an appropriate offering to the priest (v 15)
2. The priest takes the women into the court of the tabernacle before the Lord (v 16)
3. The priest takes an earthenware vessel, puts water in it, and mixed it with dust from the
tabernacle floor (v 17)
4. The priest goes back to the woman, unbinds her hair and puts the grain offering in her hands (v
18)
5. Holding the water in his hands, the priest recites the curse to the woman and she accents to it (vv
19-22)
6. The priest writes down the curses and them washes them into the holy water (v 23)
7. The priest takes the grain offering from the woman and burns part of it on the altar (vv 25-26)

8. The woman drinks the water (v 26b)

9. The water takes affect on the woman if she is guilty (vv 27-28)
I will here confine our examination of the law to four major aspects: a) the significance of the
grain offering, b) the significance of the water, c) the significance of the loosing of the womans hair, and
d) the significance of the oath and its curse.
First is the question regarding the grain offering. We are told that when the man brings his wife to
the priest, that he must also bring as an offering for her one-tenth and ephah of barley meal; he shall not
pour oil on it nor put frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of memorial,
a reminder of inequity, (v 15 NASB). Though it is called a grain offering and has some elements
described by the grain offerings of Leviticus 2, it is to be made of barley meal rather than fine flour. This
was much more in accordance with the poor mans offering in Leviticus 5:11-13, presented when one had
become unclean. This shows that the woman, even if she was innocent, was to be considered unclean,
which is inline with viewing this trial as part of the cleanliness laws that preceded it in vv 1-10. Oil and
frankincense were common symbols of the Spirit of God and of joy and were not to be included since this
was a somber occasion with little joy to be felt, (Noth 1969, 50). Harrison argues that this offering is
reminiscent of a sin offering but should not be considered as a presumption of guilt, (Harrison 1992, 108)
because the term used is qorbn which signifies an offering that could be offered as a sacrifice or offered
in sanctuary worship. There is also some discussion as to whether or not this offering is actually on behalf
of the wife or if it is really on behalf of the husband who has been shamed. The fact that the woman is not
presumed to be guilty and that the husband is to prepare and provide the sacrifice while the wife is to
offer it to the priest, may indicate that the offering is more to rectify the uncleanliness of the situation and
covers both rather than act as some kind of atonement for either the husband or the wife. The offering was
waved and then burned on the alter before the woman. Here Harrison thinks that we see that the
worshipper was making an offering of good faith, demonstrating that they did not come empty handed to
God and were willing to submit themselves to his divine law and judgments, (Harrison 1992, 115).

10

Next we come to the question regarding the significance of the water that the woman is given to
drink. While some older commentators suspected that the water would come from some spring near the
tabernacle, most have concluded that the water would come from the bronze laver mentioned in Exodus
38:8. However Calvin gives an interesting alternative possibility to this. While he does not defend it,
Calvin asks us to consider whether or not it is more likely that the water would come from the water
which was sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer whereby purifications were made in Numbers 19:1ff.
This is not only an interesting possibility considering that the water of Numbers 19 is what is used to
purify the congregation of ceremonial uncleanliness (such as the woman was now suffering) but would
also add another layer of gravity to the situation. If the water she drank was the means by which
uncleanliness was to be purified and yet she perjured herself against even that, then, as Calvin notes, no
further means of expiation remained, (Calvin 2005, 89). In any case, this water is sprinkled with dust
from the floor of the tabernacle (surely considered holy and clean by the priests) and the ink used to write
the words of the curse would be added before consummation. This mixture is called the water of
bitterness that brings a curse (v 18). This is probably not because a pinch of dust and ink would make the
water unbearable and bitter but rather, as Noth argues, is to be understood figuratively as is often the case
for the Hebrew root mrr, (Noth 1969, 51). We see other examples of this use in 1 Sam. 15:32 referring to
the bitterness of death and here it is likely the bitterness of the death that will come if the woman is guilty.
As Wenham points out (Wenham 1981, 80), there may be an allusion to several episodes in the history of
Israel up to this point as well. This may hearken back to the curse of the serpent for deceiving the man,
which is what the wife is accused of in Numbers 5, and it may also reflect the punishment of the Israelites
when they were made to drink the ashes of the golden calf in Exodus 32:20. We may even see this
passage behind the prophetic references to Yahweh forcing unfaithful Israel to drink the cup of his
judgment (Isa, 51:17, 22; Ezek. 23:30-34), (Kaiser 1983, 230). This view may be reinforced by later
passages where prophets were made to eat scrolls with the ink of messages on them which would turn
bitter and which reveal the bitter nature of the curses and judgments that were to follow, (Ezek. 3:3; Rev
10:9).

11

Finally, the earthenware bowl containing the water is placed in her hands and like the offering
before it, the woman now literally holds her life in her hands and should she proceed she will either be
faithful before God and be spared or perjure herself directly in Gods presence and fall under his divine
condemnation and judgment.
A third aspect of this ceremony that is heavily debated is the significance of loosening the
womans hair before she consumes the water of bitterness. Here there seems to be no consensus, or even
anything approaching it, among commentators. Calvin suggests that the loosing of her hair is not meant as
a sign of shame, since to view it in that regard would be to condemn her as guilty before her case was
heard. Rather Calvin viewed it as a means to communicate the severity of the charges where she is
brought before a holy God without covering so that she is laid bare before Yahweh and what follows is
either the mode of absolution or condemnation, (Calvin 2005, 88). Other commentators have suggested
that this was a sign of humility or of shame, such as Lange, who argued that she is not yet condemned as
a sinner but rather is provisionally shorn of her dignity, forsaken of her husband and all the world, whom
one, moreover, may look in the eyes, and now the offering of rebuke is laid in her hands, (Lange 1957,
37). However both Wenham and Harrison argue that this was yet another reminder that the ceremony was
dealing with uncleanliness in the camp. Like the lepers in the preceding verses who were required to have
loosened hair at all times as a sign of their condition (Lev. 13:45), the woman was also to bear the sign
that she was unclean before God, even if she was morally innocent. In contrast to her unkempt look, the
priests was required by law to refrain from becoming unclean and thus were not to untidy their hair even
when they were in mourning (Lev 10:6; 21:10-11). It seems to me that some combination of Calvins
view on the one hand, and Harrison and Wenhams on the other, is to be preferred.
Finally we arrive at the question of the curse which the woman was to affirm with a twice stated
amen. Here Walton takes what appears to be a peculiar stance. Walton argues that because the word
used to describe the nature of the crime that the husband is charging her with in v12 usually refers to a
breach of faith or sacrilege (such as in Lev. 5:14-16) that the husband has already made his wife swear an
oath and is now not charging her with adultery but rather with swearing falsely, (Walton 2000, 145). This

12

does have the benefit of explaining why the woman who does not pass the test is not condemned to civil
capital judgment but rather succumbs only to the judgments of God meted out against her after drinking
from the cup. In any case she is presumably required to swear an oath before God that she is innocent.
The text does not record the words of the oath she takes, and the grammar (following Harrison) could
even mean something like that the priest put her under oath, but what it does tell us is that in response
to her oath the priest declares the blessings and curses and that she is to consent with a double amen.
She has now been truthful to both her husband and God or has lied and attempted to deceive both. Here
again there is little agreement on what the expected outcome of the curse was to be beyond that it is
described as a swelling of the abdomen and a falling away or deterioration of the thighs. While the
Mishna engaged with traditions that taught that the woman, if she were guilty, would die on the spot or, if
innocent, would become ultra fertile and bear sons, other commentators like Josephus thought that this
referred to a kind of dropsy of the kidneys or the ovaries, (Josephus 2003, 3.11.6). Other medical
explanations seem to litter the exegetical landscape. For our purposes here what is of note is that if the
woman was guilty, the tools of her guilt (her belly and her thighslikely euphemisms for her
reproductive parts) would be the very things affected. As Theodoret commented, The punishment shall
come from the same source as the sin, (Keil 1971, 32). While it is hard to say that miscarriage is in mind
(for it is not clear that the woman will always be pregnant though that may be what caused the husbands
suspicion in the first place) certainly childlessness is in view, whether by miscarriage and/or infertility.
This would likewise be a lasting reminder that sin brings death and lifelessness and it is by fidelity to God
that there is life. Barrenness should not be viewed as a softer punishment than the capital offense of being
caught in adultery however. This woman would, by the direct judgment of God, be unable to bear
children, and as a result, render her not only a curse and an example among her people, but also deprive
her of the very thing that would have made her a real woman in that culture. That, in many ways, would
be a fate worse than death. Conversely, if the woman was found to be innocent, she would be publically
vindicated before not just her husband but her community. No one could whisper or gossip. It would be
known to all that she had been faithful to her God and to her husband.

13

Application to Church Today

The Christian church today should take away from this law the severity with which God views
adultery. Not only does God care about it so much that it is a capital offense for Israel to commit but he
sets up this procedure that even the appearance of infidelity should be rooted out from among the people,
a principle that Paul reiterates in 1 Thess. 5:22. While this law was set up so as not to be a burden of guilt
on the innocent woman, it was meant to be a constant reminder to the people that no sins are private
before an omniscient God. As Christians, we should be quick to repent before the God who sees what we
do in secret and come before him with our offering of repentance. We do not loose our hair to lay
ourselves bare while awaiting a verdict because we know that we are guilty already. We come to God in
full knowledge that we have been unfaithful and throw ourselves upon the great mercy and gracious
redeeming promises of our God.
We are to be reminded that sin will not always be found out by our community, but will always
have its consequences. David and Bathsheba learned their lesson when their sins were punished, not by
their deaths, but by the death or their infant child. Just as the judgment of the trial in Numbers 5 will
result in a miscarriage or infertility, so sin will always have its fill of death which is why Paul was correct
when he said that the wages of sin is death, (Rom 6:23). It just happens to be the case that the sin
addressed by the law is the sin of adultery. Proverbs warns us of the adulteress that her speech is
smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, and that her feet go down to death, her
steps follow the path to Sheol, (Prov 5:4, 5). And so we are warned by the whole counsel of Scripture that
the import of this law is good and true, that sexual purity is of the utmost import to the follower of Jesus
Christ because in it we are not only being unfaithful to our spouse, but also to our God. He shows us here
that he will seek out and vindicate the faithful wife but will issue a curse on the one who has broken
covenant with him.
We are also told by Paul that marriage is not just a human institution but it is a means by which
God illustrates the gospel to us. It shows us our relationship to God and that husbands are to sacrificially
love their wives as Christ loved the church and wives are to submit in humility to their husbands. That is

14

the picture of marriage Paul has for us. Peter takes this further in 1 Peter 3:7 and warns husbands that if
they do not treat their wives well, that God will go so far as to stop answering their prayers. This tells us
just how seriously God views marriage and just how far off our modern views of marriage often are, even
in the church. We are to remember this law in our marriages. We are to be faithful to our spouses as Jesus
has been faithful to us and to love one another with that kind of sacrificial love. Sadly, we do not. In fact,
we cannot. Jesus warns us in Matthew 5:28 that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already
committed adultery with her in his heart and James tells us that if break one part of the law then we are
guilty of breaking the whole law, (Jam. 2:10-13). Which of us could stand before the alter, having been
instructed of this by Christ, and still swear the oath of our perfect fidelity to our spouse?

Christ as Fulfillment
Yet there is hope for us. The Christological signifiers in this text are hard to miss after deep
reflection and permeate nearly every aspect of the ceremony. We see in Jesus the falsely accused spouse,
the one brought to trial without evidence or reason by a husband who desires to do away with him at all
cost. We see Jesus in the offering of the barley, the first fruits of the harvest just as Paul describes Jesus as
the first fruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:23). We see Jesus in the water that brings life to those God
declares innocent (Jn. 7:38).
In addition to this, we should understand the importance of seeing this law as a law of
uncleanliness. We are told in the surrounding context that lepers, the hemorrhaging woman and dead
bodies are all unclean and that if any Israelite was to touch them they too would be unclean and need
cleansing. And yet when we look to Jesus we see him touching a leper, a hemorrhaging woman and a
dead little girl and he is not made unclean but they are made clean. We read in this verse about a cup that
is full of bitter water that would bring a curse to us, being taken up by Jesus himself and rather than a
clean Jesus being defiled, we who are defiled are made clean.
However it is in this cup that we most clearly see the faithfulness of Christ to us when we
consider the fact that Israel was to be the bride of God. Yahweh is constantly castigating Israel for being

15

like an adulterous bride. Here we do not only see Gods concern for the sanctity of our marriages with
each other but of our marriage with him. God is the jealous husband who is jealous for good reason, not
mere unfounded suspicion. Throughout the pages of the Old Testament, especially that of Jeremiah,
Ezekiel and Hosea, Israel is shown that she cannot abide this trial by ordeal. She had been unfaithful and
broken her vows before God. We are told that Israel will be forced to drink the cup of his judgment
(Isa, 51:17, 22; Ezek. 23:30-34). Mackintosh wrote, The guilty one had to drink death, and found it to be
judgment; the faithful one drank death, and found it victory, (Mackintosh 1882, 115). Thankfully for us
the faithful one drank death for us, so that the guilty ones might find victory in him.

Conclusion
In the course of this paper we have seen some of the dialogues that commentators have with
regard to this law about the trial by ordeal of the woman suspected of adultery. In it we have explored the
placement of the text within the book of Numbers and the underlying ideas about the formation of the text
itself into its present form. We have seen its historical setting among other Ancient texts and have found it
far superior in its judiciousness and charity. Not only that but we have shown how the law is useful and
profitable to the modern Christian church that is languishing under a slack sexual ethic of extreme
permissiveness and how it points us toward our need for Christ as our savior and faithful groom.

16

Bibliography
Alexander, T. Desmond and David W. Baker, ed. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch.
Downer's Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003.
Allen, Ronald B. Numbers. Vol. 2, in The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, by Frank E. Gaebelein, edited by Frank E. Gaebelein, 655-1008. Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990.
Budd, Philip J. Word Biblical Commentary: Numbers. Vol. 5. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1984.
Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a
Harmony. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005.
de Vaux, Ronald. Ancient Israel: Its Life and Instructions. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1997.
Feinstein, Eve Levavi. "The "Bitter Waters" of Numbers 5:11-31." Vetus Testamentum 62
(2012): 300-306.
Harrison, R.K. The Wycliff Exegetical Commentary: Numbers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book
House Company, 1992.
Josephus. Josephus: The Complete Works. Edited by William Whiston. Nashville, TN: Thomas
Nelson, 2003.
Kaiser, Walter. Toward Old Testament Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983.
Keil, C.F. and F. Delitzsch. Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes: The Pentateuch.
Vol. III. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971.
Lange, John P. Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal and Homiletical. Vol.
Numbers. Downer's Grove, IL: Zondervan, 1957.
Mackintosh, Charles H. Notes on the Book of Numbers. New York, NY: Loizeaux Brothers,
Bible Truth Depot, 1882.
Noth, Martin. Numbers: Old Testament Library. Philidelphia, PA: Westminster John Knox Press,
1969.
Philip, James. Mastering the Old Testament: Numbers. Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1979.
Thompson, J.A. "Numbers." In The New Bible Commentary Revised, by Donald Gutherie and
Alec Motyer. Grand Rapids, MI: WB Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984.
Walton, John, Victor H. Matthew, and Mark C. Chavalas. The IVP Bible Background
Commentary: Old Testament. Downer's Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.
Wenham, Gordon. Numers: And Introduction and Commentary. Downer's Grove, IL: Zondervan,
1981.

17