Numbers 5:21

21 “At this point the priest must put the woman under oath by saying, ‘May the people know that the LORD ’s curse is upon you when he makes you infertile, causing your womb to shrivel and your abdomen to swell.

Numbers 5:21 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 5:21

Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of
cursing
An oath which has a curse annexed to it, if taken falsely, which was to be pronounced upon the woman if guilty:

and the priest shall say unto the woman;
pronouncing the imprecation or curse upon her, she having taken the oath, should she be guilty of the crime suspected of, and she had swore concerning:

the Lord make thee a curse, and an oath among the people;
accursed according to the oath taken; or let this be the form of an oath and imprecation used by the people, saying, if I have done so and so, let me be accursed as such a woman, or let not that happen to me, as did to such a woman, so Jarchi:

when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
upon drinking the bitter waters; but though these things followed upon that, yet not as the natural cause of them, for they are ascribed to the Lord, and to a supernatural and miraculous power of his, which went along with the drinking of them.

Numbers 5:21 In-Context

19 The priest will then put the woman under oath and say to her, ‘If no other man has had sex with you, and you have not gone astray and defiled yourself while under your husband’s authority, may you be immune from the effects of this bitter water that brings on the curse.

20 But if you have gone astray by being unfaithful to your husband, and have defiled yourself by having sex with another man—’

21 “At this point the priest must put the woman under oath by saying, ‘May the people know that the LORD ’s curse is upon you when he makes you infertile, causing your womb to shrivel and your abdomen to swell.

22 Now may this water that brings the curse enter your body and cause your abdomen to swell and your womb to shrivel. ’ And the woman will be required to say, ‘Yes, let it be so.’

23 And the priest will write these curses on a piece of leather and wash them off into the bitter water.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew when he causes your thigh to waste away.