Numbers 5:22

22 May this water that causes the curse go into your inner parts and make your abdomen swell and your private parts shrivel up!"- and the woman is to respond, "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 in fact gone astray while under your husband's authority and become unclean, because some man other than your husband has gone to bed with you . . ."

21 then the cohen is to make the woman swear with an oath that includes a curse; the cohen will say to the woman, ". . .may ADONAI make you an object of cursing and condemnation among your people by making your private parts shrivel and your abdomen swell up!

22 May this water that causes the curse go into your inner parts and make your abdomen swell and your private parts shrivel up!"- and the woman is to respond, "Amen! Amen!"

23 The cohen is to write these curses on a scroll, wash them off into the water of embitterment

24 and make the woman drink the water of embitterment and cursing - the water of cursing will enter her and become bitter.