Ordeal of the bitter water

Part of the Biblical ritual to determine if a wife suspected and accused of adultery, but not proven to have done so based on any reliable witnesses that obviates this ritual, is the so-called "ordeal of bitter water" to be applied in certain cases of suspected adultery . Specifically, the Hebrew Bible requires that a pregnant woman, suspected of adultery, be subjected to this ordeal if her husband becomes fiercely jealous about the pregnancy (literally has the storm-wind of jealousy ), and there are not enough witnesses able to confirm the woman's guilt or innocence . The ritual is fairly unique in the Torah, and although some scholars think that it might be mentioned by a psalm , there is no other Biblical evidence for the ritual ever having been carried out, nor is its existence acknowledged elsewhere in the Bible . According to the Mishnah , the ritual of Sotah was formally abolished in the middle of the first century (20 years before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem) . Numbers 5:11–31 Peake's commentary on the Bible (1962 edition), ad loc. specifically Psalms 109:18 This article incorporates text from the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica article "Jealousy, Ordeal of" , a publication now in the public domain .

A Sotah ( / סוטה) is a woman suspected of adultery who undergoes the ordeal of bitter water or ordeal of jealousy as described and prescribed in the Priestly Code , in the Book of Numbers , the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible . The term "Sotah" itself is not found in the Hebrew Bible but is Mishnaic Hebrew based on the verse "if she has strayed" (verb: שטה satah ) in Numbers 5:12. The process was a trial by ordeal administered to the wife whose husband suspected her of adultery but who had no witnesses to make a formal case ( Numbers 5:11–31 ). The ordeal is further explained in the Talmud , in the eponymous seventh tractate of Nashim . Spelled "שוטה" in Maimonides ' manuscript ( http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/mss/html/heb5703_h.htm ). This spelling recurs in Rabbi Yosef Qafeh 's editions of Maimonides' works. The name sotah is derived from Num. 5:12 based on the word שטה to stray. The Holy Scriptures: Proverbs, with commentary - Julius Hillel Greenstone, Jewish Publication Society of America - 1950 - Page 42 "10.6; 21.10; Num. 5.18). turn] The word is used in connection with the woman suspected of infidelity (Num. 5), whence the technical term Sotah is derived, the name given to the treatise of the Mishnah and the Talmud dealing with this subject."

Trial by ordeal in the Hebrew Bible In the Hebrew Bible , the ordeal of the bitter water was an Israelite religion trial by ordeal administered by a priest in a duly established temple court to a wife whose lawful husband, as applicant to the court, suspected his wife's pregnancy of being the product of adultery , but the husband had no witnesses to launch a case of adultery either against a male perpetrator who impregnated his wife if she was a victim of rape though she herself is not impure of the guilt of adultery, or against both the wife and the perpetrator if she participated willingly. The ordeal is described in the Book of Numbers ( Numbers 5:11–31 ).

Trial by ordeal in the Hebrew Bible Fresco in Castelseprio depicting the ordeal of the bitter water In the Hebrew Bible , the ordeal of the bitter water was a Jewish trial by ordeal administered by a priest in the tabernacle to a wife whose husband suspected her of adultery , but the husband had no witnesses to make a formal case. It is described in the Book of Numbers ( Numbers 5:11–31 ).