Numbers 5:22

22 and these waters that bring a curse will go into your intestines to cause [your] womb to swell and to make [your] hip fall away." And the women will say, "Amen. Amen."

Numbers 5:22 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 5:22

And this water that causeth the curse
Upon the drinking of which the curse follows, if guilty:

shall go into thy bowels;
and there operate and produce the above effects, which are repeated again to inject terror:

to make [thy] belly to swell, and [thy] thigh to rot;
here ends the form of the oath, which begins ( Numbers 5:19 ) ;

and the woman shall say, amen, amen;
so be it; let it be as pronounced, if I am guilty; which, as Aben Ezra observes, is repeated for the sake of confirmation; though the Jewish writers commonly understand it as respecting various things, the oath and the curse, the thing charged with, and the persons suspected of ^F24.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F24 Misn. ib. sect. 5. Targum Jon. & Jerus. & Jarchi in loc.

Numbers 5:22 In-Context

20 But if you have had an affair under your husband, and if you are defiled and a man other than your husband had intercourse with you,"

21 the priest will make the woman swear an oath of the sworn oath of the curse, the priest will say to the woman, "May Yahweh give you a curse and a sworn oath in the midst of your people with Yahweh making your hip fall away and your stomach swollen;

22 and these waters that bring a curse will go into your intestines to cause [your] womb to swell and to make [your] hip fall away." And the women will say, "Amen. Amen."

23 " 'And the priests will write these curses on the scroll, and he will wipe [them] off into the waters of the bitterness.

24 He will make the woman drink the waters of the bitterness that brings a curse, and the waters of bitterness that bring a curse will go into her.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "waste away"