EXPOSITION
THE TRIAL OF JEALOUSY (Numbers 5:11-4).
If any man's wife … commit a trespass against him. The adultery of the wife is here regarded only from a social point of view; the injury to the husband, the destruction of his peace of mind, even by the bare suspicion, and the consequent troubling of Israel, is the thing dwelt upon. The punishment of adultery as a sin had been already prescribed (Le Numbers 20:10).
If it be laid. Or, "if he be hid." This verse is explanatory of the former. Taken with the manner. The latter words are not in the Hebrew. It means no doubt "taken in the act" (cf. John 8:4). Αὐτὴ μὴ ᾗ συνειλημμένη, Septuagint.
And she be not defiled. As far as the mischief here dealt with was concerned, it was almost equally great whether the woman was guilty or not.
He shall bring her offering for her. קָדְבָּנָהּ, "her offering;" עָלֶיהָ, "on her account." It was to be a meat offering—not connected on this occasion with any other sacrifice—of the fruits of the earth, symbolizing the fruits of her guilty, or at least care. less and suspicious, conduct. As of barley meal, not of fine wheat flour, it indicated her present low and vile estate (deserved or undeserved); as without incense or oil, it disclaimed for itself the sanctifying influences of God's grace and of prayer. Thus every detail of the offering, while it did not condemn the woman (for one found guilty could not have made any offering at all), yet represented her questionable repute and unquestionable dishonour, for even the unjust suspicion of the husband is a dishonour to the wife. Barley meal. In the days of Elisha half the price of fine flour (2 Kings 7:1), and only eaten by the poor (Ezekiel 4:12; John 6:9). An offering of jealousy. Literally, "of jealousies." קְנָאֹת, an intensive plural. An offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance. Θυσία μνημοσίνου, Septuagint. An offering to bring the woman into judicial remembrance before the Lord, in order that her sin (if any) might be remembered with him, and be declared.
Before the Lord. Either at the brazen altar or at the door of the tabernacle.
Holy water. Probably from the laver which stood near the altar (Exodus 30:18). The expression is nowhere else used. The Septuagint has ὕδωρ καθαρὸν ζῶν, pure running water. In an earthen vessel. Cheap and coarse, like the offering. Of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle. This is the only place where the floor of the tabernacle is mentioned. As no directions were given concerning it, it was probably the bare earth cleared and stamped. The cedar floor of the temple was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:16, 1 Kings 6:30). This use of the dust has been held to signify the fact
(a) that man was made of dust, and must return to dust (Genesis 3:19); or
(b) that dust is the serpent's meat, i.e; that shame and disgust are the inevitable fruit of sin (Genesis 3:14; Isaiah 65:25).
Of these,
(a) is not appropriate to the matter in question, since mortality is common to all, and
(b) is far too recondite to have been intended here.
It is very unlikely that the spiritual meaning of Genesis 3:14 was known to any of the Jews. A much simpler and more intelligible explanation is to be found in the obvious fact that the dust of the tabernacle was the only thing which belonged to the tabernacle, and which was, so to speak, impregnated with the awful holiness of him that dwelt therein, that could be mixed with water and drunk. For a similar reason the "sin" of the people, the golden calf, was ground to powder, and the people made to drink it (Exodus 32:20). The idea conveyed to the dullest apprehension certainly was that with the holy dust Divine "virtue" had passed into the water—virtue which would give it supernatural efficacy to slay the guilty and to leave the guiltless unharmed.
Uncover the woman's head. In token that she had forfeited her glory by breaking, or seeming to have broken, her allegiance to her husband (1 Corinthians 11:5-46); perhaps also with some reference to the truth that "all things are naked and open to the eyes of him" with whom she had to do (Hebrews 4:13). Put the offering of memorial in her hands. That she herself might present, as it were, the fruits of her life before God, and challenge investigation of them. Bitter water. It was not literally bitter, but it was so fraught with conviction and judgment as to bring bitter suffering on the guilty.
If no man. The oath presupposed her innocence. With another instead of thy husband. Hebrew, "under thy husband, i.e; as a wife subject to a husband (Ezekiel 23:5; Hosea 4:12). "Υπανδρος οὗσα, Septuagint. It was only as a femme couverte that she could commit this sin.
Then the priest shall say unto the woman. These words are parenthetical, just as in Matthew 9:6. The latter part of the oath is called "an oath of cursing," because it contained the imprecations on the guilty. To rot. Hebrew, "to fall." Τὸν μηρόν σου διαπεπτωκότα,, Septuagint. To swell. The Hebrew zabeh is not of quite certain meaning, but probably this.
Into thy bowels. Cf. Psalms 109:18. Εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν σου, Septuagint. It has been thought that these symptoms belonged to some known disease, such as dropsy (Josephus, ‘Ant.,' 3.11, 6), or ovarian dropsy. But it is clear that the whole matter was outside the range of the known and of the natural. An innocent woman may suffer from dropsy, or any form of it; but this was a wholly peculiar infliction by direct visitation of God. The principle which underlay the infliction was, however, clear: δἰ ὧν γὰρ ἡ ἁμαρτία διὰ τούτων ἡ τιμωρία—the organs of sin are the seat of the plague. Amen, amen. Doubled here, as in the Gospel of John. The woman was to accept (if she dared) the awful ordeal and appeal to God by this response; if she dared not, she pronounced herself guilty.
In a book. On a roll. Blot them out with the bitter water. Rather, "wash them off into the bitter water," in order to transfer the venom of the curses to the water. Ἐξαλείψει … εἰς τὸ ὔδωρ, Septuagint. The writing on the scroll was to be washed off in the vessel of water. Of course the only actual consequence was that the ink was mixed with the water, but in the imagination of the people, and to the frightened conscience of a guilty woman, the curses were also held in solution in the water of trial. The direction was founded on a world-wide superstition, still prevalent in Africa, and indeed amongst most semi-barbarous peoples. In the ‘Romance of Setnan,' translated by Brugsch. Bey, the scene of which is laid in the time of Rameses the Great, a magical formula written on a papyrus leaf is dissolved in water, and drunk with the effect of imparting all its secrets to him that drinks it. So in the present day, by a similar superstition, do sick Mahomedans swallow texts of the Koran; and so in the middle ages the canonized Archbishop Edmund Rich on his death-bed washed a crucifix in water and drank it, saying, "Ye shall drink water from the wells of salvation."
He shall cause the woman to drink. This is said by anticipation, because she did not really drink it until after the offering (Numbers 5:26).
Offer it upon the altar. According to tile law of the minchah (Leviticus 2:1-3), only an handful was burnt as a "memorial" (Hebrew, azkarah), the rest being "presented,'' and then laid at the side of the altar to be subsequently eaten by the priests. All this was done before the actual ordeal by drinking the water, in order that the woman might in the most solemn and complete way possible be brought face to face with the holiness of God. She stood before him as one of his own, yet as one suspected and abashed, courting the worst if guilty, claiming complete acquittal if innocent.
Shall enter into her, and become bitter. Rather, "as bitter," or "as bitterness," i.e. as producing bitter sufferings. Shall be a curse, i.e; shall be used as an example in the imprecations of the people.
And shall conceive seed. As a sign of the Divine favour; to a Jewish woman the surest and most regarded (1 Samuel 2:5; Psalms 127:3; Luke 1:58).
This is the law of jealousies. A law prescribed by God, and yet in substance borrowed from half civilized heathens; a practice closely akin to yet prevalent superstitious, and yet receiving not only the toleration of Moses, but the direct sanction of God; an ordeal which emphatically claimed to be infallibly operative through supernatural agencies, yet amongst other nations obviously lending itself to collusion and fraud, as does the trial by red water practiced by the tribes of West Africa. In order to justify heavenly wisdom herein, we must frankly admit, to begin with—
(1) That it was founded upon the superstitious notion that immaterial virtue can be imparted to physical elements. The holiness of the gathered dust and the awfulness of the written curses were both supposed to be held in solution by the water of jealousy. The record does not say as much, but the whole ordeal proceeds on this supposition, which would undoubtedly be the popular one.
(2) That it was only fitted for a very rude and comparatively barbarous state of society. The Talmud states that the use of it ceased forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem (if so, during our Lord's earthly lifetime); but it may be held certain that it ceased long before—indeed there is no recorded instance of its use. It was essentially an ordeal, although one Divinely regulated, and as such would have been morally impossible and highly undesirable in any age but one of blind and uninquiring faith. And we find the justification of it exactly in the fact that it was given to a generation which believed much and knew little; which had a profound belief in magic, and no knowledge of natural philosophy. It was ever the wisdom of God, as revealed in the sacred volume, to take men as they were, and to utilize the superstitious notions which could not at once be destroyed, or the imperfect moral ideas which could not at once be reformed, by making them work for righteousness and peace. It is, above all, the wisdom of God not to destroy the imperfect, but to regulate it and restrain its abuses, and so impress it into his service, until he has educated his people for something higher. Everybody knows the extreme violence of jealousy amongst an uncivilized people, and the widespread misery and crime to which it leads. It may safely be affirmed that any ordeal which should leave no place for jealousy, because no room for uncertainty, would be a blessing to a people rude enough and ignorant enough to believe in it. Ordeals arc established in a certain stage of civilization because they are wanted, and are on the whole useful, as long as they remain in harmony with popular ideas. They are, however, always liable to two dangers.
(1) They occasionally fail, and are known to have failed, and so fall into disrepute.
(2) They always lend themselves readily to collusion or priestcraft.
The trial of jealousy being adopted, as it was, into a system really Divine, and being based upon the knowledge and power of God himself, secured all the benefits of an ordeal and escaped all its dangers. It is probable enough that the awful side of it was never really called into play. No guilty woman would dare to challenge so directly a visitation so dreadful, as long as she retained any faith or any superstition. Before the time came when any Jewish woman had discarded both, the increasing facilities of divorce had provided another and easier escape from matrimonial troubles.
HOMILETICS
THE SIN OF ADULTERY
We have here, in the letter, a piece of legislation altogether obsolete, because adapted to an age and to ideas utterly foreign to our own; yet, in the spirit, we have, as part of the moral law of God which changeth not, the unspeakable abhorrence in which the sin of adultery is held with him, and the great displeasure with which he regards the mere suspicion of it. For this ordeal was not merely or primarily to punish guilt or to restore domestic peace but to remove sin and passion from before the eyes of God. Consider, therefore—
I. THAT GOD RESERVED HIS MOST AWFUL VISITATION OF OLD TIMES FOR SUCH ADULTERY AS HAD SUCCESSFULLY ESCAPED HUMAN OBSERVATION. So there is no sin which more surely destroys a nation or a class by kindling the wrath of God against it than adultery. So the Jews in the time of the later prophets (Jeremiah 5:8; Hosea 4:2), and m the time of our Lord (John 8:7; the Talmud, as above); so the upper classes in France before the Revolution; so perhaps our own today.
II. THAT GOD DID NOT APPOINT DIVORCE AS A REMEDY AGAINST CONJUGAL UNFAITHFULNESS. For it is no remedy against the sin, but only against some of its painful consequences. The glosses and traditions of the Jewish lawyers made divorce easy and common, because they no longer believed in the righteousness of God or in the hatefulness of sin, as sin.
III. That nothing is more abhorrent from the will of God concerning us THAN THAT FIERCE JEALOUSY AND CRUEL SUSPICION SHOULD INVADE FAMILIES, and poison the purest source of human happiness. Both, therefore, sin greatly—the wife who gives the least ground for suspicion by levity or carelessness of conduct, the husband who nurses a spirit of jealousy, and does not try to bring it to the test of facts.
IV. That the sin of adultery was PUNISHED UNDER THE LAW WITH MISERABLE DEATH, WHEREAS CHRIST REFUSED TO AWARD ANY SECULAR PUNISHMENT TO IT (John 8:11). And this is
(1) because of the greater mercifulness of the gospel, calling men to repentance (Romans 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9); but also
(2) because of the greater severity of the moral law now revealed, threatening eternal death to all adulterers (Galatians 5:19, Galatians 5:21; Hebrews 13:4).
V. THAT THIS SPECIAL AND AWFUL PROVISION WAS MADE ONLY AGAINST THE SIN OF THE WIFE, because it is from her sin that jealousy and its consequent crimes do as a fact arise in rude communities. But under the more perfect law of Christ there is no difference made between the same sin in men and women, but rather the sin of the man is denounced because it is more lightly accounted by the world (Matthew 5:28; 1 Thessalonians 4:6, "in the matter").
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
THE TRIAL OF JEALOUSY
Just previously, regulations are laid down with respect to offences in general. Here is an offence which needed to be dealt with m a special way, as being one where restitution was impossible. The offence also destroyed a relation of peculiar sacredness and importance, and the discovery of guilt was difficult, perhaps impossible of attainment, by ordinary lines of proof.
I. THE HUSBAND'S POSITION IS RECOGNIZED. The spirit of jealousy is not condemned as in itself an evil passion. In it he might be angry and sin not. The spirit of jealousy could not be too much excited or too amply satisfied, if only the facts corresponded to his feelings. No mention is made of a similar ordeal for the husband to pass through if a spirit of jealousy were awakened in the wife, and so it may seem that more severity was meted out to the woman than the man. But the offence of an unfaithful husband, equally great of course as a sin, might not be equally dangerous as a crime. The principles of human law which compel men to graduate crime and punishment had to be remembered in the theocracy. An examination of the Mosaic laws against sexual impurity shows that they provided stringently for both sexes. The adulterer was punishable with death. A guilty wife in the discovery of her guilt dragged down her paramour (Le Numbers 20:10).
II. THE WIFE'S POSITION IS RECOGNIZED. To punish her more severely for a lapse of conjugal fidelity was really to honour her, showing that in one respect more was expected from her. It became every Israelite to walk circumspectly; it peculiarly became the Israelite matron. May we not say that the spirit of jealousy, though it might often be manifested on insufficient grounds, was nevertheless in itself a provision of God, through nature? The reputation of a wife is a very delicate thing, and was meant so to be. The tenth commandment specifies, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife." Hence we may infer there was some temptation to men to commit this sin, and wives needed to be specially on their guard. The ordeal to which God called them, hard as it might seem, had a most honourable side. Let it not be said that Mosaic legislation showed the Oriental depreciation of woman. God was caring for her even then, but she had to partake of the severity of the law, even as, long after, represented by the woman taken in adultery, she shared in the clemency and tenderness of the gospel.
III. THE UNERRING DISCOVERY OF GUILT. God took the matter away out of the obscurities of circumstantial evidence. The very nature of the offence made it difficult for a suspicious husband to get beyond presumption. "The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight" (Job 24:15). But God called the accused wife among the solemnities of the tabernacle, and concealment and evasion thenceforth became impossible. Notice how the ordeal was painless in itself. There was no walking on burning ploughshares nor demand on physical endurance. It was independent also of anything like chance, as if the casting of a lot had been held to settle the matter. The bitter water was drunk, and God, who brings all secret things into judgment, showed the indubitable proof in the swollen body and the rotted thigh. Proof, sentence, and punishment were all in one.
IV. THE DISCOVERY, EQUALLY UNERRING, OF INNOCENCE. One wonders what the history of this ordeal was in practice; how often used, and with what results. We know not what terrible tragedies it may have prevented, what credulous Othello it may have restored to his peace of mind, what Desdemona it may have vindicated, and what Iago it may have overthrown in his villainous plots. "God shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday" (Psalms 37:6). There will be a final clearing of all the innocent, however many have been condemned at a human bar. The whole matter assumes its most significant aspect when we note how the apostasy of God's people is figured by gross and shameful breaches of the marriage vow (Ezekiel 16:1-26). The doom of the adulterous wife foreshadows the doom of the backsliding believer.—Y.