Numbers 5:22

22 may this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your body swell and your thigh fall away.' And the woman shall 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Numbers 5:22 In-Context

20 But if you have gone astray, though you are under your husband's authority, and if you have defiled yourself, and some man other than your husband has lain with you,

21 then' (let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman) 'the LORD make you an execration and an oath among your people, when the LORD makes your thigh fall away and your body swell;

22 may this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your body swell and your thigh fall away.' And the woman shall say, 'Amen, Amen.'

23 "Then the priest shall write these curses in a book, and wash them off into the water of bitterness;

24 and he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain.