Abortion, the Rite of the Jealous Husband, and the Cup of Wrath in Numbers 5:11-31
It’s the Saturday morning following the surprising overturning of Roe v. Wade by the US Supreme Court, and a brief scroll through Twitter brought several versions of the same tweet to my attention:
“If Pro-Life people were actually biblically literate, they would realize that abortion is codified in the Bible. Haven’t these people ever read Numbers 5:11-31? What hypocrites!”Now, I cannot speak to the average pro-life American’s awareness of the rituals testing a woman suspected of adultery as laid out in chapter 5 of the book of Numbers. That, I guess, is not a typical passage studied by Evangelicals. However, what I find I can’t take lying down is the claim that Numbers 5 explicitly describes an abortion, signifying God’s approval of the practice in all its forms. Is this what the passage portrays?
The Curse and Its Effects
Numbers 5:11-31 is a notoriously difficult passage. (I encourage you to read it thoroughly—the context will be helpful for the rest of the article.) An entire section of the Mishna, Tractate Sotah, is dedicated to unpacking its implications for family law. The judicial case described is somewhat ambiguous, the ritual is the only clear-cut instance of trial by ordeal in the Torah, and the test itself, with its cursed scrolls and potions, seems more like pagan magic than lofty monotheism. On top of this, the text itself is difficult to translate. This issue is highlighted by Twitter’s confusion regarding the English translations’ differences. The NIV uses the word “miscarry” in verses 21-22 and 27-28, describing the results of the curse should the woman be guilty of adultery. The ESV translations differ significantly, translating the same phrases as “cause your body to swell” or “your womb to swell.” The NLT says, “cause infertility,” “cause your womb to shrivel,” and “your abdomen to swell.” What are we to make of these textual discrepancies? If this passage does indeed justify abortion, these verses describing the curse and its effects (v. 21, 22, 27, 28) are a crucial part of the argument. English clearly will not help us, so there is nothing for it but to dive into the Hebrew text. Let’s look at the two most relevant portions. Numbers 5:21-22 (starting with actual words of the curse):A more literal English translation might read, “May יהוה make you a curse and an imprecation among your people, as יהוה causes your thigh to sag and your belly to distend; may this water that induces the curse to enter your body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag.” Numbers 5:27-28יִתֵּ֨ן יהוה אוֹתָ֛ךְ לְאָלָ֥ה וְלִשְׁבֻעָ֖ה בְּת֣וֹךְ עַמֵּ֑ךְ בְּתֵ֨ת יהוה אֶת־יְרֵכֵךְ֙ נֹפֶ֔לֶת וְאֶת־בִּטְנֵ֖ךְ צָבָֽה וּ֠בָ֠אוּ הַמַּ֨יִם הַמְאָרְרִ֤ים הָאֵ֙לֶּה֙ בְּֽמֵעַ֔יִךְ לַצְבּ֥וֹת בֶּ֖טֶן וְלַנְפִּ֣ל יָרֵ֑ךְ
Again, a literal translation might read: “Once he has made her drink the water—if she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband, the curse-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag; and the wife shall become a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she shall be unharmed and able to retain seed.” It is not until the end of the passage that the issue of fertility is even mentioned: “she shall…retain seed.” The woman in question is not necessarily undergoing this trial because she is pregnant, and the husband suspects the child is not his. This is often assumed, but the text nowhere explicitly says this. Instead, in light of her husband’s jealousy and suspicion, she is undergoing this trial as a means of vindication (or not!). There is no clear case of miscarriage, let alone abortion, mentioned anywhere in the text. We will only begin to suspect that fertility enters into it because the innocent woman is blessed with the ability to conceive. (The irony of this passage being used by abortion-rights activists!) The main counterargument is that pregnancy and abortion are implied by the passage’s ambiguous language and euphemisms. Perhaps we could concede that swelling בֶּ֖טֶן (belly, abdomen, sometimes womb) or the shriveling יָרֵךְ (hip, thigh, sometimes loins) could be euphemistically referring to cursing the guilty woman with infertility. In this case, her barrenness is a punishment, not something she wants for herself. But to say that the text clearly describes terminating a pregnancy is to read something that is not there into the passage. Using this law as precedent and justification for legal abortion, particularly outside the specific case of suspected infidelity being addressed, is an absurd stretch. So much for what this passage is not about. I would hate to leave it at that, though, because this portion of scripture has some amazing intertextual connections that communicate a beautiful aspect of God’s character. So let’s do a deep dive into what the laws of sotah parallel in the Scriptures and what that tells us about who God is.וְהִשְׁקָ֣הּ אֶת־הַמַּ֗יִם וְהָיְתָ֣ה אִֽם־נִטְמְאָה֮ וַתִּמְעֹ֣ל מַ֣עַל בְּאִישָׁהּ֒ וּבָ֨אוּ בָ֜הּ הַמַּ֤יִם הַמְאָֽרְרִים֙ לְמָרִ֔ים וְצָבְתָ֣ה בִטְנָ֔הּ וְנָפְלָ֖ה יְרֵכָ֑הּ וְהָיְתָ֧ה הָאִשָּׁ֛ה לְאָלָ֖ה בְּקֶ֥רֶב עַמָּֽהּ
וְאִם־לֹ֤א נִטְמְאָה֙ הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה וּטְהֹרָ֖ה הִ֑וא וְנִקְּתָ֖ה וְנִזְרְעָ֥ה זָֽרַע
Many Waters
The passage in Numbers 5 centers around a woman whose husband suffers from a “wind/spirit” of jealousy but has not caught her in the act of unfaithfulness. First, the husband must make an “offering of jealousy and remembrance” at the Tabernacle. Then, to clear herself of this suspicion, the Torah outlines a bizarre ritual for the wife to follow. The accused woman comes before the priest, and he makes a mixture of sacred water and dust from the Tabernacle floor, takes a parchment scroll that details this very law, dissolves it into the water, and gives it to the woman to drink. If she is guilty, she suffers painful physical symptoms, such as a swollen belly and possibly infertility. But if she is innocent, she would be symptom-free and able to conceive. What are we to make of this? It seems more Macbeth than Masoretic. Suppose we try to figure out the mechanics of this particular form of justice. What properties do the dissolved curse scroll, tabernacle dust, and holy water have in and of themselves to reveal the woman’s guilt or innocence? I don’t think we’ll get far with this approach. However, a closer look at the Hebrew text might give us an intertextual clue as to what this particular ritual is reenacting. What other story involves the elements of water, erasure of something in the water, mixing dust with water, and ending with renewed fertility and remembrance? The flood! We, of course, have the apparent parallel of water as the means of judgment. The element of erasure is present as well. The relatively uncommon Hebrew word מָחָה, meaning “to wipe,” is used by God to describe his judgment on the wickedness of man in Genesis 6:7 (“I will blot out…”) as well as the words of the curse in Numbers 5:23 (…the priest shall…wash them off). In Genesis 2:7, we learn that God formed man from the עָפָר, that is, the dust. After the fall in Genesis 3:19, part of Adam’s judgment is that “you are dust (עָפָר) and to dust (עָפָר) you shall return.” The flood waters of Genesis 7 wiped out all wicked mankind (except Noah’s family), and they returned to the dust after drowning in the flood waters. Numbers 5:17 has the priest collecting dust (עָפָר) from the Tabernacle floor to mix with the waters. The beginning of the sotah rituals is triggered by a רוּחַ (spirit, wind) of jealousy coming over the husband and him bringing a remembrance offering to the Tabernacle. In Genesis 8, God remembers Noah and causes a רוּחַ (wind) to blow over the waters. In the ordeal of the flood, God blessed Noah, commanding him to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1). The same blessing of fruitfulness is on the innocent wife of Numbers 5:28, who can conceive children.The Wormwood and the Gall
The flood waters were a great reset for the relationship between God and mankind, and the sotah rituals echo this reset within a marriage. We can trace this theme from the flood to the Golden Calf incident, when the Hebrew people, newly pledged in covenant to their God, betrayed Him and were unfaithful with an idol. Moses’ judgment for the act was to make the people drink water mixed with the dust (עָפָר) of their idols. (Exodus 32, Deut 9:21) Moses then went up before God and begged that the people might not be “blotted out”—that is מָחָה. God did not erase the people, but they suffered a plague, physically manifesting their sinfulness in their bodies, as the guilty wife would in the sotah rituals. The covenant at Sinai, with its curses and blessings, also follows this pattern. Faithful keeping of the law produces fruitful land and fertile wombs. Adulterous abandonment of the law leads to exile/erasure from the land and a lack of children. (Deut 28) Beyond echoes of sotah in the Torah, the prophets and writings are full of imagery portraying God as a wronged husband who often uncovers the unfaithfulness of his people with a cup of judgment. One example is in Jeremiah 23:14-15: “But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies…Behold, I will feed them with wormwood and give them bitter water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”Jealousy is a Husband’s Fury or Take This Cup from Me
The flood, the unfaithfulness of the Hebrew people with the Golden Calf and their punishment, the blessings and curse of the law, and the recurring theme of the cup of wrath throughout the prophets and writings show that rather than being an obscure and defunct legal ritual, the rite of the jealous husband and the laws of sotah illustrate a core principle of how Israel relates to her God. He doesn’t solely relate to Israel as a sovereign deity but as a passionate husband who is jealous for all her affection. Though the cycle of blessings and curses, obedience and disobedience, exile and redemption, adultery and faithfulness have marked this tumultuous marriage, there will be an end to this cycle with God promising us he will present himself with a pure and spotless bride.“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:31-34)A Day is coming when we will no longer provoke our beloved God to jealousy with our gross unfaithfulness. The law inside us will not produce barrenness and sickness but life and fruitfulness. No longer will the remembrance of our sin follow us, but our iniquity will be forgiven and forgotten. The land and people will be abundant as they were created to be. May it happen speedily and in our days!