The Woman Is To Be Made to Drink Of The Water of Testing Before Yahweh (Numbers 5:23-24).
‘And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness,'
The priest was then to write the curse on papyrus or clay or stone, after which he would by some known method cause the ink of the curse to go into the water of bitterness, blotting them from the book, possibly by pouring some of the holy water on it, or by using a scraper. Thus the curse would become a part of ‘the water of bitterness'.
‘And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness which causes the curse, and the water which causes the curse shall enter into her and be bitter.”
Then he was to make the woman drink ‘the water of bitterness which causes the curse' in front of Yahweh and the water would be absorbed by her body and would be bitter. This may simply mean that if she was guilty it would have bitter effects. If however, the ingredients did make it bitter then the very bitterness would bring home the efficacy of the curse if she was guilty. She would feel that it was working already. Whatever else came from the ceremony it would be playing heavily on her conscience. Few guilty women would be able to go this far without confessing their guilt.
It is probable that we are to see Numbers 5:17-24 as repeated from a manual containing instructions for the procedure to be followed. Thus the writer is citing the words of the manual. If so that would mean that Numbers 5:24 simply consisted of words repeated from the manual and not a description of what the priest actually did at the time. That would come in Numbers 5:25-26. Even if not, such repetition for emphasis is typical of ancient writings. The idea would then be to come quickly to the conclusion before going back and giving further detail, something which regularly happens elsewhere in Scripture (compare for example Judges 6:24-27). This standard practise for a time misled scholars into seeing evidence for different sources.