Numbers 5:21

21 at this point the priest must make the woman take the oath with the sworn curse, and he is to say to her- 'May the Lord make you into an object of your people's cursing and swearing when He makes your thigh^[a] shrivel and your belly swell.^[b]

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 require the woman to take an oath and will say to her, 'If no man has slept with you, if you have not gone astray and become defiled while under your husband's authority, be unaffected by this bitter water that brings a curse.

20 But if you have gone astray while under your husband's authority, if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has slept with you'-

21 at this point the priest must make the woman take the oath with the sworn curse, and he is to say to her- 'May the Lord make you into an object of your people's cursing and swearing when He makes your thigh shrivel and your belly swell.

22 May this water that brings a curse enter your stomach, causing [your] belly to swell and [your] thigh to shrivel.' "And the woman must reply, 'Amen, Amen.'

23 "Then the priest is to write these curses on a scroll and wash [them] off into the bitter water.

Footnotes

• [a]. Possibly a euphemism for the reproductive organs
• [b]. Or flood