Ángel
Manuel Rodríguez
I
was reading Numbers 5:11-31, the description of the experience of a wife
whose husband suspects her of adultery. I found it strange and almost
inhuman.
I
have to agree with you; this is a strange regulation for which no exact
parallel has been found in the ancient Near East. What some find very
offensive is that it supposedly depicts women as less than human.
Briefly,
this is what the passage regulates: A husband who suspects that his wife
has committed adultery brings her to the priest. The priest takes water
and places dust from the floor
of the sanctuary in it, then pronounces and writes a curse against the
wife and washes the written
words into the water. The wife pronounces an oath and drinks the water.
If she is guilty her abdomen will swell and she will probably become infertile.
Other details in the text are likewise difficult to interpret.
Most
scholars believe that the text describes a trial by ordeal. Ordeals were
common in the ancient world; and the purpose was to determine guilt or
innocence by divine intervention. It included a physical test whose results
only the gods could control; e.g., a person had to carry in the hands
a very hot object for a specific distance. Usually failure in the ordeal,
that is, experiencing bad consequences of the test, was followed by a
punishment determined by judges. Since in the case of the suspected adulterer
the penalty was stipulated by God Himself, some scholars do not consider
it to be an ordeal in the technical sense of the word. They prefer to
call it instead a dramatized oath.
In
explaining this, we have to look for the real intention of the law. It
may surprise you to know that the primary role of this law was to protect
not the rights of the husband but he rights and dignity of the woman.
This is indicated by the following points:
1.
The Woman Is Liberated From the Oppression of Her Husband: A jealous
husband who suspected marital infidelity could have inflicted psychological
and even physical abuse upon his wife. This legislation essentially tells
the abusive and capricious husband, "Take her to the Lord or shut up,"
thus limiting his power over her as a human being.
2.
She Was Taken to God's Court of Law: Instead of allowing men to determine
whether the suspected adulterer was guilty or not, God Himself decided
the case. She was in fact placed under divine protection against a legal
system controlled by men who could have easily sympathized too much with
her husband. She faced God as a human being with all her legal rights.
Drinking water with dust from the holy sanctuary, symbolically containing
the curse, signaled her total dependence on God as holy and just.
3.
She and Her Husband Were Encouraged by the Law to Take the Case to the
Lord: In the husband's case, the law motivated him to follow this
particular and unique legal procedure. If she was declared innocent by
the Lord, there would be no further punishment or penalty. The wife was
encouraged to participate, even if she had doubts, by the fact that it
would bring an end to her husband's accusations. Even if she were guilty,
her fate was in God's hand, and humans were not
allowed to put her to death. Her sin would probably have resulted in sterility
and separation from her husband, but not death.
4.
The Woman Could Be Accused Only by Her Husband: In some laws of the
ancient Near East, any member of the community could accuse a woman suspected
of adultery. In this biblical legislation the right to press charges was
restricted exclusively to the husband of the suspected adulterer, thus
setting limits to the community's social control over a woman or any attempt
to victimize her.
This
was a good law in a society in which women did not have as many rights
as they have now in Western societies. The Lord addressed the Israelites
where He found them and worked with them, trying to lift their social
standards as much as possible within the cultural context in which they
lived. This legislation demonstrates that God had, and still has, a high
regard for women.
6/14/01
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