Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.
All Commentaries on Numbers 5:31 Go To Numbers 5
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Blameless. To act in conformity with God's injunctions could not be reprehensible. But it would have been certainly criminal to tempt God in this manner, in order to discover a secret offence, if he had not authorized it expressly. If the husband wished to avoid the displeasure of God, he was bound to banish from his heart all malice, rash judgments The permission here granted, was owing to the hardness of heart of this stiff-necked people, as well as the laws regarding divorces and retaliation. Women, being of a more fickle and suspicious temper, are not indulged with the privilege of divorcing their husbands, or of making them drink the waters of jealousy. But if a man were taken in the act of adultery, he was put to death, Leviticus xx. 10. The crime is equal in both parties. "The husband, says Lactantius, (de V. Cultu. xxiii.) ought, by the regularity of his conduct, to show his wife what she owes him. For it is very unjust to exact from another, what you do not practise yourself. This injustice is the cause of the disorders, into which married women sometimes fall. They are vexed at being obliged to continue faithful to those, who will not be so to them. "The Romans would not allow wives to bring an action against their husbands. "You would kill, with impunity, your wife taken in adultery, without any trial, said Cato, and she would not dare to touch you with her finger, if you fell into the same crime. "(Gell. x. 23.) The authority which was given to husbands over their wives, was deemed a sufficient restraint; and men being obliged to be often from home, and in company, would have been exposed to continual alarms, from the suspicious temper of their wives, if they had been subjected to the like trials. (Calmet)
In latter ages, however, the Jewish ladies began to assume the right of divorcing their husbands, in imitation of Salome, sister of Herod the great, and of Herodias, his grand-daughter, Matthew xiv. 3. (Josephus, Antiquities xv. 11 and xviii. 7.) Grotius supposes that the Samaritan woman had divorced her five husbands, John iv. 18. But this being contrary to the law, her first marriage alone subsisted. (Haydock)
Her iniquity, in giving her husband any grounds of suspicion. The Rabbins observe, that he was bound first to admonish her, before witnesses, not to keep company with people of bad character; and if he could bring witnesses that she had been found afterwards with them for ever so short a time, he might have the remedy of the law. The pagans maintained, that several of their fountains and rivers had the power of disclosing and punishing perjury. Polemon mentions a fountain of this nature in Sicily; and Solinus (Chap. xi.) says, that one in Sardinia caused the perjured to go blind. The waters of the Styx were greatly feared on this account. (Hesiod, Theog. 783.) Tatitus (vii. 20,) mentions some other fountains, which had the same effects as the bitter waters. (Calmet)
The various ordeal trials which were formerly in use, were probably established in imitation of this law of Moses; but not having the same authority or sanction, they were in danger of being looked upon as superstitious. (Haydock)
