🔢WEB · Numbers 5:24
What does Numbers 5:24 mean?
"He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter."
— Numbers 5:24 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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;
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.”
“‘The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.
He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter.
The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar.
The priest shall take a handful of the meal offering, as its memorial, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water.
When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled, and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away: and the woman will be a curse among her people.
Explanation
Numbers 5:24 comes from the middle of a detailed ritual described in Numbers 5:11-31, often called the ordeal of the "water of bitterness" or the "trial by jealousy." In plain language, this verse describes a specific step in that ritual: a priest gives a woman suspected of adultery a mixture of holy water, dust from the tabernacle floor, and ink washed from a written curse to drink. The verse states that this water, now carrying the written curse within it, would enter her body and, if she were guilty, become "bitter" — meaning it would produce a physical consequence confirming her unfaithfulness.
To understand the context, remember that Numbers is part of the Torah, traditionally attributed to Moses, written for the Israelite community during their wilderness journey after the Exodus. This chapter addresses a specific social problem: a husband's suspicion of his wife's infidelity when there were no witnesses and no way to prove guilt or innocence through normal legal means (which required two or three witnesses, per Deuteronomy 19:15). Rather than allowing the husband to act on mere suspicion or take matters into his own hands, the law channeled the accusation through a formal, priestly procedure at the tabernacle. The woman would drink the water and pronounce an oath; if she was guilty, the text says she would suffer physical affliction (verses 21-22, 27); if innocent, she would be unharmed and even declared free to bear children (verse 28).
Theologically, this ritual reveals several things about how God dealt with Israel. First, it plac
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