Numbers 5:21

21 then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, 'Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to 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 The priest shall cause her to swear, and shall tell the woman, 'If no man has lain with you, and if you haven't gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be free from this water of bitterness that brings a curse.
20 But if you have gone astray, being under your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain with you besides your husband:'
21 then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, 'Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell;
22 and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.' The woman shall say, 'Amen, Amen.'
23 "The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.
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