Episode 55: The law of jealousies

(Numbers 1-5)

Moses takes a census

1 ¹ In the second year after leaving Egypt, God said to Moses,

² Take a census of all the people of Israel who are at least twenty years old and able to go to war.

⁴⁵ The number of able-bodied Israelite men over twenty years old was 603,550.

The law of jealousies

5 ¹¹ God said to Moses,

^12-15 When the spirit of jealousy comes upon a man, and he suspects that his wife has had sex with another man, he shall bring his wife to the priest. ¹⁶ And the priest shall set her before me.

¹⁹ The priest shall say to the woman:

^20-21 If you’ve had sex with a man who is not your husband, God will cause this water to make your thigh rot and your belly swell.

²² And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen.”

²⁴ Then the priest will make her drink the bitter water that causes the curse.

²⁷ If she is defiled and has had sex with a man who is not her husband, God will make her belly swell, her thigh will rot, and she will be a curse among her people.

²⁸ But if she is not defiled, then she shall be free and will conceive seed.

²⁹ This is the law of jealousies, when a wife has sex with a man who is not her husband.

³⁰ Or when the spirit of jealousy comes on a man, and he is jealous over his wife.

³¹ The man is guiltless, and the woman shall bear her iniquity.