The “bitter water”
test found in the fifth chapter of Numbers is the source of a fair bit of
confusion and debate.
There are arguments that it
legitimizes abortion, arguments that the test
couldn’t possibly work, and of course we can’t forget the obligatory fussing that the test was
unegalitarian because it was not applied to men.
That makes the chapter worth a little more attention, surely.
Not a Christian Option
Numbers 5 contains a God-given fidelity test for married or betrothed women in ancient Israel in the
event their husbands believed they were having an affair.
In a Christian marriage, the wife has God-given authority over her husband’s body and the husband has God-given authority over hers. For solid practical, religious and cultural reasons, Israelite marriages 3-4,000 years
ago did not operate quite the same way. So let’s get it out of the way right up front that the ‘bitter water test’ is not presented to today’s
reader of scripture as a viable option for Christians having marriage
difficulties. I’m much more interested in looking at Numbers 5:11-31 in
its cultural context to see if perhaps it made a whole lot more sense in Israel
than it might make to us today.
I believe it did. Is anyone surprised?
A Brief Summary
In Israel, a jealous husband or fiancé (betrothals were taken a little more seriously in those days
than engagements are taken today) did not have to become a green-eyed monster
if he believed his wife or wife-to-be had cheated on him. He did not have to
divorce her outright to settle the matter to his satisfaction, reciprocate in
kind, or mistreat his wife for things she may or may not have actually done. If
she continued to maintain her innocence in the face of his accusations, the issue
could be resolved by taking a grain offering to the priest. Any couple could afford that.
The priest would take some dust from the tabernacle floor and put it in holy water in a clay vessel. The woman would
then hold the grain offering while taking an oath that she had been faithful, calling
curses on herself in the event she was lying. Her statement would be written
down by the priest, then the ink washed off the paper into the dusty water (making
it a fairly unpalatable concoction, I’m sure). The priest would then burn the
grain offering before God, bringing Heaven itself into the equation, and then
give the woman the water to drink.
Two Possible Outcomes
If she were innocent, she would be perfectly fine, though she might like a bit of fresh water to wash the taste of
dust and ink out of her mouth. Probably her husband would get it for her
himself, while falling over himself apologizing profusely. If, however, it
turned out she was indeed guilty of adultery, she would immediately experience acute
pain, a swollen womb and a “falling thigh”. She would subsequently be unable to
conceive, and would experience the social shame (and perhaps the legal
consequences) appropriate for those who break faith and lie to God.
How was this accomplished? Well, it had to be at least somewhat miraculous. I’ve seen speculation that the effectiveness
of the ‘bitter water’ turned on hormones released by stress levels, but no
purely naturalistic explanation makes sense, or would be guaranteed 100%
accurate. In a time period when God spoke to Moses on Sinai, sent plagues on
Egypt and opened up the Red Sea for his people to cross, it seems silly to cavil about how it came to be that holy water worked differently on
liars than on honest women. Believe it all or disbelieve it all, but don’t carp
about trivia, please.
Believe It or Not
I also balk at calling such a thing a “trial by ordeal”, because the “ordeal” part only happened to guilty women,
unless you call the taste of the concoction an ordeal. I suspect that’s
stretching it though. There are probably alcoholic drinks that taste worse. Not
only do they cost more, but people consume them voluntarily.
However, our modern culture does not easily accommodate things that might be ever-so-slightly conflated
with trials-by-ordeal. We do not need them in any case; DNA tests are simpler.
It should be obvious ancient Israel didn’t have many of those.
All the same, there are things about this chapter that admittedly may make us a little concerned.
So one thing we should get very clear at the outset of studying it is this: three
times in this chapter it says, “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying ...”
We either believe that or we don’t.
Did God Speak?
If we do not believe the Lord actually spoke to Moses, here or elsewhere, the Law has nothing
whatsoever to say to us either by principle or precept. If these instructions are
simply the words of an opinionated man, well ... times change. We may
create whatever moral rules we like and dismiss those we don’t.
However, if we believe the Lord really did speak to Moses,
there can be no taking the foolish and inconsistent intellectual position that
some of God’s commands were good and proper in their time and provide insights
into his character, while others (like this one) reflect a low and
patro-hierarchical morality that our enlightened modern society has now
superseded. We either take them all, or we take none. The Israelite could not
have bits of the Law of Moses without accepting the entire thing, and the
modern Christian reader cannot have his Old Testament and his doctrine of
scriptural inspiration without the occasional moment of intellectual pause. So
be it.
Well, what about it then?
First, Some Context
To get the sense that the ‘bitter water test’ was designed to deal with something bigger than
interpersonal disagreements about sexual habits, we need to look at the entire
chapter.
Numbers 5 deals with various kinds of defilement. Uncleanness. Things that separated men and
women from their God. The tabernacle from which the dust was gathered for the
water of bitterness was the place where God Almighty uniquely came down from
heaven and camped among the Israelites. One of the conditions of his presence
with them was that they abstain from things that made them unclean, or else go
outside the camp, away from the presence of God. That was just how it was, and
the people of Israel not only
accepted God’s conditions, they
mourned when he threatened to leave them
to their own devices.
With God in Israel’s midst, then, it was first necessary that ceremonial uncleanness be dealt with. Those who were defiled through illness or through
touching dead people or animals were to stay outside the camp. The first four verses of chapter 5 deal with that requirement. Then, people with unclean consciences were to confess their sin and repay their debts, adding 20%, even if the person to whom they
had done the wrong was now dead, and even if he had no kin to receive the repayment of the debt. It was necessary that justice be done for God to remain in fellowship with Israel. This subject is covered
from verses 5-10. The
rest of the chapter deals with women accused of being secretly unclean through sinful sexual conduct.
If true, then, an accusation of sexual unfaithfulness was not merely a personal matter. Defilement — even
discreet, hidden defilement — impacted the nation’s relationship with
its God. It may have been hidden from man, but not from him.
More Reasons It Mattered
Here are a few reasons a woman committing adultery and concealing it had a wider impact than we might think. First, there are at least three problems with it stated for us right in the chapter:
defilement (sin against herself, mentioned seven times),
breaking faith (sin against her husband, mentioned twice), and
going astray (sin against God, mentioned three times). So there is sin against
self, sin against the husband, and sin against God.
Second, adultery produced three very practical problems that we do not have to read very far between the
lines to grasp. These are jealousy, lies and cuckolding.
The effects of this last item should not be underestimated. There was something more at stake than the
feelings of two married people. In Israel, permanent land ownership was inherited,
not purchased. The land was God’s. You could never acquire another person’s
real estate permanently, because in the year of jubilee it would be released
back to the original owner at no cost. Because of this, any Israelite husband
who allowed himself to be tricked or browbeaten by his wife into raising
another man’s child was effectively making him heir to valuable family real
estate, and co-heir with any real children of the marriage. He was giving away
his God-given inheritance in Israel to the scion of another man … perhaps
a man from another tribe or even another nation.
That mattered to a father, it mattered to the child and it surely mattered to any brothers and
sisters who would normally share the estate.
Life Without DNA Testing
Now, sure, not every unfaithful wife becomes pregnant by her lover, and this passage does not assume
a pregnancy was the cause of the husband’s jealousy. But if the husband
believed his wife was characteristically unfaithful, the probability that she
would eventually carry another man’s child was not insignificant. Some
mechanism was needed by which a husband could be confident about his wife’s
faithfulness. Among other things, if he had doubts about her, he might wrongly disinherit a deserving child.
As to the first two problems, unresolved jealousy and dishonesty would not only ruin the marriage,
resulting in unhappiness, perpetual suspicion, possible abuse and a terrible atmosphere
in which to raise children, but they also would contaminate the camp and create
a breach in the relationship between God and man.
For several reasons, then, a situation in which a woman was thought to have committed adultery could
not go unaddressed.
More on God’s solution tomorrow ...
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