Numbers 5:22

22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body. May it make your body unable to have children." " 'Then the woman must say, "Amen. Let it happen."

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 suppose you have gone down the wrong path while you are married to your husband. You have made yourself 'unclean.' You have had sex with a man who isn't your husband."

21 " 'At that point the priest must put the woman under the curse of the oath. He must say, "May the LORD cause your people to call a curse down on you. May he cause them to speak against you. May they do it when the LORD makes your body unable to have children.

22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body. May it make your body unable to have children." " 'Then the woman must say, "Amen. Let it happen."

23 " 'The priest must write the curses on a scroll. He must wash them off in the bitter water.

24 It is the water he will have the woman drink. It is bitter water that brings a curse. It will enter her body. And it will cause her to suffer bitterly.