Today’s reading provides an excellent example of how a hasty reading of the ancient Bible text, through a modern lens, can miss so much. Initially you may find yourself feeling appalled at this “test for an unfaithful wife” in Numbers 5. This looks like a primitive ‘trial by ordeal’. The reader might also wonder why a husband’s unfaithfulness is not mentioned here. The simple answer is that, in an ancient society, it was women who needed protection from suspicious husbands rather than vice versa. This is what this law is providing: protection! In the ancient world ‘trials by ordeal’ for women suspected of adultery were common, and usually involved painful and often fatal ordeals that would generally ensure a guilty verdict. What this law does is invert all that and ensure the protection of accused women. It would take supernatural intervention for a woman to die from the ceremony prescribed here. The ‘bitter water’ itself would not have caused harm to the woman. What brought the curse was the act of lying on holy ground (which is why dust and water from the tabernacle were used). So, the outcome is left to God. The woman is considered innocent until proven guilty. In its context this law is remarkably counter-cultural. However, it had to be similar enough to make sense at all to ancient people. It is the similarities that frame the difference. This is an example of how the biblical law corrects features of ancient law that were resoundingly unjust. God cares about the vulnerable. He is just and he wants us to care about justice as much as he does.
Ask God to bring justice where you have seen injustice.
Read Numbers 5
