Numbers 5:21

21 here the priest puts the woman under this curse - 'may God cause your people to curse and revile you when he makes your womb shrivel and your belly 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 Then the priest will put the woman under oath and say, 'If no man has slept with you and you have not had an adulterous affair and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that delivers a curse not harm you.

20 But if you have had an affair while married to your husband and have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband' -

21 here the priest puts the woman under this curse - 'may God cause your people to curse and revile you when he makes your womb shrivel and your belly swell.

22 Let this water that delivers a curse enter your body so that your belly swells and your womb shrivels.' "Then the woman shall say, 'Amen. Amen.'

23 "The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash the words off into the bitter water.