There are many places in the Bible that treat men and women the same: “When a man or a woman wrongs another, breaking faith with the Lord, that person incurs guilt and shall confess the sin that has been committed” (Numbers 5:5-6). Yet there are also many passages that clearly are not egalitarian. If a jealous husband suspects his wife of secret adultery, for example, he can make an accusation against her (Numbers 5:14-15); but there’s no parallel process for a jealous wife to make an accusation against her husband.

The process certainly seems odd to our modern sensibilities. She must drink the water of bitterness and cursing, calling down on herself dreadful consequences if she is guilty; “the Lord make you an execration and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge”” (5:21). If it turns out she is innocent, no harm shall come to her. Yet if she is innocent – and therefore the victim of the false accusation of a jealous husband – “the man shall be free from iniquity,” yet if she is guilty, “the woman shall bear her iniquity” (5:31).

It is not at all a pretty picture, and the tone of the passage seems designed to mollify the jealous husband rather than to guard the rights of the wrongly-accused wife. Yet there is something worth noting here. This process provided a way to stop the accusations of a paranoid husband.

The case would arise when there was no actual evidence of adultery – no witness, no one caught her in the act – so the prosecution hinges on the suspicion in the soul of a husband who has no genuine knowledge (5:13). It could turn out that he would continue to be jealous and suspicious of her forever. Some men are like that. This ritual, strange as it was, gave the wrongly-accused wife the opportunity to demonstrate that she had done nothing wrong. Her husband might well still be a jerk; but everyone would know he was an unreasonably-suspicious jerk whose wife had been proven innocent. Maybe he might even realize that himself.

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We believe so much in our own righteousness, O Lord, and we are so ready to accuse those around us of grievous failings: often on no evidence at all, other than a suspicion in our soul. Teach us to repent of our own sins: for we all need your grace so much, every day.

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