Numbers 5:22

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.'

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 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.

24 He will require the woman to drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and it will enter her and cause bitter suffering.