Numbers 5:27 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

The water shall enter into her These effects, the Jews tell us, presently followed; for she grew pale, and her eyes were ready to start out of her head, so that they cried out, Carry her away, lest she defile the court of the temple, by dying there. But if what has just been observed from the Jewish writers be true, that, upon confessing her guilt, the woman was only divorced and condemned to lose her dowry, it is probable there were not many instances wherein this miraculous judgment was inflicted; for it is hardly to be supposed that any woman, conscious of her guilt, would, by asserting her innocence thus solemnly, in defiance of the Almighty, venture upon the hazard of sudden and immediate death, with all the miserable circumstances here described, rather than confess and gain time to repent. And the woman shall be a curse among her people Such woful effects shall the before-mentioned bitter draught produce, that she shall become a perfect proverb of a curse and wretchedness in the mouths of all her neighbours.

Numbers 5:27

27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.