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Vulgate: Numbers: Numbers Chapter 5

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This is a passage from the Latin Vulgate Bible, comprising Numbers 5:1–31, a collection of three distinct legal-ritual ordinances attributed to divine commands delivered through Moses. The first section orders the expulsion from the Israelite camp of those with skin disease, bodily discharges, or ritual impurity from contact with the dead. The second establishes a restitution framework for sins committed against others, requiring confession, repayment of the principal sum plus a fifth, and a sacrificial offering — with unclaimed restitution reverting to the priesthood. The third and longest section prescribes the "trial of the sotah" (law of jealousy): a ritual for testing a wife suspected of adultery without witnesses, in which the priest administers "bitter cursed water" mixed with tabernacle dust and dissolved written curses — if guilty, the woman's abdomen is to swell and her thigh rot; if innocent, she is unharmed and will conceive. The text is notable for encoding a form of trial by ordeal that places the burden of proof entirely on the accused woman while explicitly exempting the husband from any culpability, a notably asymmetric legal arrangement. As ancient priestly law embedded in the Pentateuch, it reflects ritual purity concerns, sacerdotal authority, and patriarchal assumptions about marital fidelity characteristic of the broader legal sections of the Torah.

Vulgate: Numbers: Numbers Chapter 5

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