I’ll admit, when I first started reading about the test of adultery in Numbers 5, I initially regarded it with shock. What is happening here? Why can a husband just accuse his wife of adultery and she can’t? Why is there a test for this specific sin and not for any other?
Whenever my personal response to the Bible is shock and/or disgust, I need to take a step back and re-evaluate the Text. Why am I emotionally responding negatively to God’s Word? In that case, it’s me that needs to change, not God.
So, I took another read-through of this section and something jumped out at me, specifically as the Text changes to refer to this procedure as the “law of jealousy” in Numbers 5:29. That’s a negative word—almost as if the Text is clueing us in to the real reason for the test in the first place.
Think about this scenario in real time. A husband is convinced his wife is cheating on him, so he accuses her of treachery, holds it over her head, and treats her disrespectfully because of his perceived slight.
What’s a woman to do in that case? Just sit there and take it?
According to Numbers 5, she has a very real alternative: Take me before the priest and let’s settle this once and for all. If I’m guilty, everyone will know. If I’m not, however, everyone will also know that. The accusations and mistreatment theoretically should stop immediately.
Taken from this lens (which is supported by other writers), the law of jealousy is not a built-in attempt to humiliate the wife, but a defense mechanism the wife can use to prove her own innocence. What else could she possibly do to prove her innocence besides a test where God is the judge?
Jealousy is all through this Text. Indeed, within the first several verses, God calls it a “spirit of jealousy” whether the wife is guilty or not. The husband has no proof—she wasn’t caught, there’s no witness—so it’s nothing more than his own paranoia. The test will prove whether that paranoia has any basis, though.
What God knows about marriage that we sometimes have to learn through experience is the toll that suspicions and hard feelings can take on a relationship. If I suspect that my wife is cheating on me—whether there’s any proof or not—I will treat her different. It’s human nature. I can’t not be mad about something if that’s what I believe.
This test provides vindication for my spouse and should force me to change my attitude if my suspicions are unfounded.
The key word in that sentence, though, is “should.” If I have the proof that she’s innocent and I still treat her with anger and jealousy, that’s a sin on my part. It’s a personal violation of “bearing false witness,” except I’m only lying to myself. The effects will be seen by others, however.
This section is as much as challenge to all of us to check our hearts as it is a test for adultery. If we still harbor anger towards others that’s unfounded and not fair, it’ll absolutely affect our relationships.
As Solomon says, “Guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
