Tanach: Numbers (Bemidbar): Numbers (Bemidbar) Chapter 5

This is a passage from the Hebrew Bible — Numbers 5:1–31, presented in parallel columns showing the Masoretic Hebrew text and a scholarly transliteration. It belongs to the Priestly legal corpus of the Pentateuch and contains three distinct divine commands delivered to Moses for the Israelites. The first mandates expulsion from the camp of anyone ritually impure (those with skin disease, bodily discharges, or corpse-contamination), grounding purity law in God's presence dwelling among the people. The second establishes a restitution framework for wrongs against others, treating such offenses as a trespass against God himself and requiring confession, full repayment plus a fifth, and a ram of atonement. The third and longest section (vv. 11–31) details the *sotah* ("straying woman") ordeal: a ritual for testing a wife suspected of adultery when no witnesses exist, in which a priest administers "bitter cursing waters" mixed with tabernacle dust and a dissolved written curse — if guilty, the woman suffers physical affliction (swollen belly, fallen thigh); if innocent, she is acquitted and promised fertility. Notably, the passage is distinctive for preserving one of the ancient world's few documented trial-by-ordeal rituals within a monotheistic legal framework, and for its asymmetry: the husband bears no reciprocal liability if the accusation proves false.

Tanach: Numbers (Bemidbar): Numbers (Bemidbar) Chapter 5

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