Numbers 5:24 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And become bitter— And become is not in the Hebrew: the word is למרים lemarim,—in amaritudinem,—for bitterness; and by a comparison of the 27th verse, it appears that this alteration in the phrase is used as referring to the case of guilt. Very many and extraordinary are the effects which the wonder-loving rabbis tell us immediately followed this draught: but if what Bishop Patrick observes from the Jewish writers be true, that, upon confessing her guilt, the woman was only divorced without dowry, it is probable there were but few instances where 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 certain hazard of sudden and immediate death, with all the miserable circumstances here described, rather than confess, and gain time to repent, after the experiment had been already tried by one or more.