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22 and this water that causes the curse will go[a] into your stomach and make your abdomen swell and your thigh rot.”[b] Then the woman must say, “Amen, amen.”[c]

23 “‘Then the priest will write these curses on a scroll and then scrape them off into the bitter water.[d] 24 He will make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings a curse will enter her to produce bitterness.

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Footnotes

  1. Numbers 5:22 tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. It could be taken as a jussive following the words of the priest in the previous section, but it is more likely to be a simple future.
  2. Numbers 5:22 tn Heb “fall away.”
  3. Numbers 5:22 tn The word “amen” carries the idea of “so be it,” or “truly.” The woman who submits to this test is willing to have the test demonstrate the examination of God.
  4. Numbers 5:23 sn The words written on the scroll were written with a combination of ingredients mixed into an ink. The idea is probably that they would have been washed or flaked off into the water, so that she drank the words of the curse—it became a part of her being.