Numbers 5:23

23 'Then the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall scrape them off into the bitter water.

Numbers 5:23 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 5:23

And the priest shall write these curses in a book
The above curses imprecated on herself by an oath; the words and the letters of them were written at length, in a scroll of parchment; and, as some say also, her name, but not her double amen to them ^F25: and he shall blot [them] out with the bitter water:
wash them out with it, and into it, or scrape them off of the parchment into it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 Misnah, ut supra, (Sotah, c. 2) sect. 3.

Numbers 5:23 In-Context

21 then the priest shall put the woman under the oath of the curse, and he shall say to the woman--"the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your thigh rot and your belly swell;

22 and may this water that causes the curse go into your stomach, and make your belly swell and your thigh rot." Then the woman shall say, "Amen, so be it."

23 'Then the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall scrape them off into the bitter water.

24 And he shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter her to become bitter.

25 Then the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman's hand, shall wave the offering before the Lord, and bring it to the altar;