Numbers 5:21

5:21 Then the priest will put the woman under the oath of the curse ¹  and will say ²  to the her, “The Lord make you an attested curse ³  among your people, ⁴  if the Lord makes ⁵  your thigh fall away ⁶  and your abdomen swell; ⁷ 

Numbers 5:23

5:23 “‘Then the priest will write these curses on a scroll and then scrape them off into the bitter water. ⁸ 

Numbers 5:17

5:17 The priest will then take holy water ⁹  in a pottery jar, and take some ¹⁰  of the dust ¹¹  that is on the floor of the tabernacle, and put it into the water.

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¹ sn For information on such curses, see M. R. Lehmann, “Biblical Oaths,” ZAW 81 (1969): 74-92; A. C. Thiselton, “The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writings,” JTS 25 (1974): 283-99; and F. C. Fensham, “Malediction and Benediction in Ancient Vassal Treaties and the Old Testament,” ZAW 74 (1962): 1-9.

² tn Heb “the priest will say.”

³ tn This interpretation takes the two nouns as a hendiadys. The literal wording is “the Lord make you a curse and an oath among the people.” In what sense would she be an oath? The point of the whole passage is that the priest is making her take an oath to see if she has been sinful and will be cursed.

⁴ sn The outcome of this would be that she would be quoted by people in such forms of expression as an oath or a curse (see Jer 29:22).

⁵ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition to form an adverbial clause: “in the giving of the Lord…,” meaning, “if and when the Lord makes such and such to happen.”

⁶ tn TEV takes the expression “your thigh” as a euphemism for the genitals: “cause your genital organs to shrink.”

⁷ sn Most commentators take the expressions to be euphemisms of miscarriage or stillbirth, meaning that there would be no fruit from an illegitimate union. The idea of the abdomen swelling has been reinterpreted by NEB to mean “fall away.” If this interpretation stands, then the idea is that the woman has become pregnant, and that has aroused the suspicion of the husband for some reason. R. K. Harrison (Numbers [WEC], 111-13) discusses a variety of other explanations for diseases and conditions that might be described by these terms. He translates it with “miscarriage,” but leaves open what the description might actually be. Cf. NRSV “makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge.”

⁸ sn The words written on the scroll were written with a combination of ingredients mixed into an ink. The idea is probably that they would have been washed or flaked off into the water, so that she drank the words of the curse – it became a part of her being.

⁹ tn This is probably water taken from the large bronze basin in the courtyard. It is water set apart for sacred service. “Clean water” (so NEB) does not capture the sense very well, but it does have the support of the Greek that has “pure running water.” That pure water would no doubt be from the bronze basin anyway.

¹⁰ tn Heb “from.” The preposition is used here with a partitive sense.

¹¹ sn The dust may have come from the sanctuary floor, but it is still dust, and therefore would have all the pollutants in it.