33 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the priest shall charge her by an oath,.... Or give her her oath: and say unto the woman, if no man hath lain with thee: besides her husband: and thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness [with another] instead of thy husband; which is but another phrase expressive of the same thing, the sin of adultery: be thou free from this bitter water that...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband,.... Gone aside from the paths of modesty and chastity, and betook herself to another man's bed instead of her husband's: and if thou be defiled, by committing adultery: and some man hath lain with thee beside thy husband; these phrases are all synonymous, and a heap of words are made...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And this water that causeth the curse,.... Upon the drinking of which the curse follows, if guilty: shall go into thy bowels; and there operate and produce the above effects, which are repeated again to inject terror: to make [thy] belly to swell, and [thy] thigh to rot; here ends the form of the oath, which begins Numbers 5:19; and the woman...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the priest shall write these curses in a book,.... The above curses imprecated on herself by an oath; the words and the letters of them were written at length, in a scroll of parchment; and, as some say also, her name, but not her double amen to them (y): and he shall blot [them] out with the bitter water: wash them out with it, and into it,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse,..... Having the curse imprecated upon herself, if guilty, scraped into it; and this she was obliged to drink, whether she would or not; so it is said, if the roll is blotted out, and she says I am defiled, the water is poured out, and her offering is scattered in the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand,.... Which she was obliged to hold in her hand while the above rites and ceremonies were performed; which was very heavy, being an omer of barley flour, a measure about three quarts, which was put into an Egyptian basket made of small palm tree twigs: and this was put into...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, [even] the memorial thereof,.... For good or evil, according as her works were, as Aben Ezra observes; a memorial for good, if innocent, and a memorial for evil, if guilty: and burn [it] upon the altar; as the handful of other meat offerings used to be, Leviticus 1:2; and afterwards shall cause...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And when he hath made her to drink the water,.... For, as before observed, and here by Jarchi again, if she says I will not drink it, after the roll is blotted out, they oblige her, and make her drink it whether she will or not, unless she says I am defiled: then it shall come to pass, [that] if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean,.... If she is not guilty of adultery, but pure from that sin: then she shall be free; from the effects of the bitter water; they shall have no such influence upon her, but she shall be as soured and healthful as ever; nay, the Jewish writers say more so, that if she had any sickness or disease upon...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
This [is] the law of jealousies,.... Which was appointed by God to deter wives from adultery, and preserve the people of Israel, the worshippers of him, from having a spurious brood among them; and to keep husbands from being cruel to their wives they might be jealous of, and to protect virtue and innocence, and to detect lewdness committed in the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife,.... [See comments on Numbers 5:14]; and shall set the woman before the Lord; has carried the matter so far as to bring his wife to the priest or civil magistrate, and declare his suspicion, and the ground of it: and the priest shall execute upon her all this law; he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity,.... Which otherwise he would not, by conniving at her loose way of living, and not reproving her for it, and bringing her either to repentance or punishment; and retaining and encouraging jealousy in his mind, without declaring it, and his reasons for it: the sense of the passage seems to be, that...