Numbers 5
DOYLYChap. VI. ver. 2.—to vow a vow of a Nazarite.] That is, a vow of separation or abstinence; for the Hebrew word, from which Nazarite comes, signifies “to separate or abstain.” Bp. Kidder. “Nazarite” denotes one separated from others by a profession of some extraordinary and special acts of religion. Bp. Patrick.
Numbers 5:21
- — The Lord make thee a curse] So that when men would imprecate evil on another, they should say, Let that befall thee, which befell such a woman. Bp. Kidder. The water of jealousy, drunk by an Israelitish woman, suspected of infidelity to her husband, but denying that crime, has been a subject of great difficulty. It appears to have contained the essence of an oath, varied for the purpose of peculiar solemnity: so that a woman would naturally hesitate to take such an oath, understood to be an appeal to Heaven of the most solemm kind: understood also to be accompanied, in case of perjury, by most painful and fatal effects. The drinking appears to have been a symbolical action: when “the priest wrote the curses in a book,” and washed those curses into the water which was to be drunk, the water was understood to be impregnated, as it were, to be tinctured with the curse, the acrimony of which it received; so that now it was metaphorically bitter, containing the curse in it. The drinking of this curse, though conditionally effective or non-effective, could not but have a great effect on the woman’s mind; and an answerable effect on the husband’s jealousy, which it was designed to cure and to dissipate. Script. illust. Expos. Ind.
Numbers 5:29
- This is the law of jealousies,] By which God declared Himself to be privy to the most secret sins; and to be both the preserver of conjugal faith and chastity, and the protector of innocence: and at the same time prevented all other hard and cruel usage of the wife, in the case of the husband’s jealousy. Bp. Patrick, Pyle. It has been well remarked, that this species of ordeal could not injure the innocent at all, or punish the guilty, except by a miracle: whereas, in the ordeals by fire, &c. in the dark ages, the innocent could scarcely escape, but by a miracle. Dr. Graves.
Numbers 5:31
- Then shall the man be guiltless] Nor shall the husband incur any reproach in thus prosecuting the wife, that gives him occasion of jealousy, whether she prove really guilty or not. If she appear innocent, she still pays for her indiscretion: and if guilty, she has the just punishment of her crime. Pyle. From this declaration of God, that He would chastise the offender, and from this mention of the particular chastisement, in a case, for which no human punishment could be inflicted, appears the unreasonableness of supposing that Moses was indeed a virtuous and wise man, but that the Law, which he drew up for the Israelites, was of his own contrivance, and that he called it a Divine revelation, to make the people reverence it, and imposed upon them for their good. As he was a virtuous man, he would not have done evil that good might come of it; and as he was a wise man, he would never have made such laws as this and others like it, and have promised what he was not able to per- The law of the Nazarites. Before CHRIST 1490. to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the LORD: