This law about jealousy is recorded at
Numbers 5:12-31. If a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness he was to bring her to the priest. The priest made her stand before Jehovah, took some holy water or pure, fresh water, sprinkled into it some dust from the tabernacle floor, and washed or wiped into it the cursings he had written down. What these cursings were is shown in
Nu 5 verses 19-22 (
NW): “Then the priest must make her swear and he must say to the woman, ‘If no man has cohabited with you and if while under your husband you have not turned aside in any uncleanness, be free of the effect of this bitter water that brings a curse. But you, in case you have turned aside while under your husband and in case you have defiled yourself and some man has put in you his seminal emission, besides your husband,—’ The priest must now make the woman swear with an oath involving cursing, and the priest must say to the woman: ‘May Jehovah set you for a cursing and an oath in the midst of your people by Jehovah’s letting your thigh fall away, and your belly swell. And this water that brings a curse must enter into your bowels to cause your belly to swell and the thigh to fall away.’ To this the woman must say, ‘So be it! So be it!’” The woman drank the water and if guilty her thigh fell away and her belly swelled, but if she was innocent she was unharmed by the water: “She must be free from such punishment and she must be made pregnant with semen.”—
Nu 5 Vs. 28,
NW.
Just what is meant by the swelling of the belly and the falling away of the thigh is not certain. It is quite evident, however, that thigh as here used is a euphemism or a delicate way of referring to the sexual organs, as is the case at
Genesis 46:26,
NW. It is logical that if any bodily parts be afflicted it should be the ones committing the wrong, as is the case when Jesus figuratively spoke of ridding yourself of a body member that hindered your entry into the Kingdom. (
Mark 9:43-47) The expression “fall away” is understood to mean “waste away” (
CB), “shrink” (
Da) or “shrivel” (
Mo), and hence would suggest that the sex organs atrophied and that there was a loss of fertility and ability to conceive. This view harmonizes with the statement that if the woman was innocent she was to be made pregnant, implying that if she was guilty any future pregnancy would be denied her. Her belly would swell because of the curse, but not due to the blessing of pregnancy.
There was actually nothing in the water that was drunk to bring on such affliction and no innocent woman would be harmed by it, but it was holy water and had in it holy ground or dust and the writing of the cursings washed off in it, and hence it contained potent symbolisms, and it was drunk before Jehovah and with a solemn oath to him. He was involved and acted as judge, and he knew whether the woman was innocent or guilty, and if she was guilty he would cause the drink to have miraculous potency to produce the deserved result. So there was not this power in the drink by itself, and this factor eliminates it as any trial by ordeal as practiced during the Dark Ages. Those torturous trials were not prescribed by the Bible and they had power in themselves to injure seriously or kill. Whereas the law about jealousy required a miracle to bring about the punishment, the trials by ordeal during the Dark Ages required a miracle to deliver from punishment. In effect, you were guilty till proved innocent.