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Numbers 5:18. "And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and unbind the hair of the woman’s head, and place in her hands the cereal offering of remembrance, which is the cereal offering of jealousy. And in his hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse."

 

This is part of an elaborate and mysterious process the Lord is laying out for times when a husband suspects his wife of having committed adultery. The woman is to take an oath, and the priest is to have her drink the "water of bitterness" after pronouncing that if she has not had relations with another man, she will be free from the effects of the water, but if she has, after drinking the water, she will have bitter pain "and her body shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become an execration among her people" (Numbers 5:27). 

 

To me, this is one of those things in the Bible that is just weird. I guess it really happened, and worked, otherwise the Lord would not have said it, but how the "water of bitterness" affected an adulteress but not a woman who had been faithful is beyond me. And if it worked, why don't we still do it today (other than the fact that we would have put Jerry Springer out of a job)? 

 

Putting aside my confusion, though, one thing I love about all the seemingly endless, detailed rules God gave Moses is how God loves His people so much that He gives them a way to deal with every major problem that might come up, especially ones that could result in great injustice without His guidance. Here, He knows there will be times when husbands will jealously suspect their wives, and some of those times their suspicions will be well-founded. These situations can result in violence, turmoil, and even murder, so God gives His people a method for dealing with them peacefully. One imagines all parties would feel they had received justice when the priest executed this law. 

 

Of course, it is the guilty woman who suffers, while the man with whom she committed adultery does not seem to be corrected in any way. There is a lot to think about there, but one thing is simply that this is the reality of adultery. Women usually see sex differently than men. In general, it is a much more emotionally bonding experience for us, one that when treated casually, by us or the man in question, can cause us great pain. Further, women are the ones who, through the potential of a resultant pregnancy, bear the real burden of disordered sexual relations. 

 

God really is protecting women with this rule. He is keeping innocent women from being killed over their husband's jealousy. Further, by making adulterous women the ones who suffer through this punishment, He is encouraging women to be faithful to the men who have shown their willingness to protect them and their offspring by marrying them. He is warning women that it is they who will suffer the worst of the consequences if they are not faithful, and that is simply true.