Numbers 5:11

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, and a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, and she be not taken in the act; and the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled: then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and shall bring her oblation for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is a meal-offering of jealousy, a meal-offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance."

This is one of the four remaining paragraphs in this chapter dealing with the trial by ordeal for jealousy. The vast difference between this ordeal and the countless ordeals of paganism is that this one "is not in itself injurious, but depends for its efficacy upon the direct interposition of God."[10] In the very language of this passage we have another evidence of Numbers having come from the times of Moses, NOT from a later date. "It is distinctly reminiscent of the forms of treatment prescribed by the Babylonian priest-physicians of the second millennium B.C."[11] A word of caution, however, is in order with regard to all suppositions that this ordeal was similar, except in the most superficial sense, to any of the pagan ordeals ever known. Yes, there were ordeals by water.

(1) In some of those ordeals, the person being tried was bound and weighted with heavy weights and thrown into a river; if he failed to come up he was declared to be innocent (though dead!); and if he floated, he was guilty!

(2) In others, the person tried was forced to plunge his hands into boiling water. If no damage resulted, the person was innocent. If a severe burn resulted, the person was declared guilty.

(3) There were other cases in which the defendant was compelled to pick up red-hot metal, or walk barefooted over burning coals, etc.

To refer to these "ordeals" as similar in any manner whatsoever to the non-injurious procedures outlined here is absolutely ridiculous. Even the allegedly similar ordeal attributed to the Code of Hammurabi,[12] involved the grave possibility of the woman's being drowned by throwing herself in the river, and would almost certainly have involved her death if the customary weights were affixed to her person, the verdict being guilty if she drowned, innocent if she survived. No, there is nothing really similar to this Biblical account in any of the fantastic "ordeals" which featured the myths and practices of paganism.

Even such a trial as this outlined in Numbers appears cruel to modern students, but as Ward suggested, "We should remember that other civilizations of that day considered it a proper way of determining guilt or innocence.[13] This is a very significant fact, and it was probably for the purpose of rescuing his people from any reliance upon the prevalent style of "ordeals" that the benign and harmless procedures of this chapter were given.

"A tenth of an ephah of barley meal ..." (Numbers 5:15). Such meal-offerings were normally offered with oil and frankincense, but these were especially commanded to be omitted here. Why? "The usual meal-offering was an occasion of joyful thanksgiving, but this was a different situation."[14] The omission of these symbols of joy and thanksgiving, along with the designation of the water later as "bitter water," pinpoints the fact of jealousy itself being an inglorious and bitter business. A tenth of an ephah was about seven pints.[15]