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Romans 11:33
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! Numbers five tells us of a very strange ritual concerning the 'woman suspected of adultery'. The ritual is very different from all others because it depends on a miracle. In those days women were not to be seen alone with someone of the opposite sex who is not a relative or their husband. Here is a scenario: A man sees his wife several times alone in the company of another man. He does not witness any indiscretion but finds it very strange that his wife should break protocol in this way. He suspects her of adultery. Immediately he has to stop marital relationships until she is vindicated. To vindicate her, the man has to bring his wife to Jerusalem where an officiating priest will unbind her hair and make her drink a potion of water, ink, and dust from the tabernacle (reminiscent of the Golden Calf episode in Exodus: 32:20). If she is guilty, her womb will swell and her thigh will drop, but if she is not guilty of adultery, she will conceive and have a child (Numbers 5: 14-31). At first glance the system seems chauvinistic and even ludicrous The whole thing also solely depends on the operation of a miracle for either vindication or condemnation. The sages of Israel teach that the whole point though was to protect the woman from an over jealous husband, to exonerate her, as well as to preserve marital harmony. He who is married to Israel preserves marital harmony with His bride even at the cost of His own Name. The passage tells us that the priest is to write God's Name and then dilute it in water, mix it with dirt and give it to the woman to drink. This erasure of the Divine Name comes against and despite the forbiddance to do so (Deuteronomy 12:3-4). In order to bring marital peace and unity God is willing to let His own Name be erased and dragged through the dirt. Pondering on this point, I am saddened when I realize the flippant attitude many have towards marriage. Whereas the Father of all Compassions seems to go to the nth degree to preserve marital peace and harmony, I see (and you probably do too) many marriages broken because of trivial and mostly selfish reasons; sometimes even because of theological differences. Whereas Paul, the chosen apostle of the Master, advises marriages between believers and idol-worshipping pagans to remain together (1 Corinthians 7) nowadays people divorce because can't agree on how to worship the same God. Such a sad reflection on the Father! The way I see it, we would be destroyed if He treated us the way we treat each other, and be lost if He judged us the way we judge each other (Psalm 103:10). If only we would realize the sanctity God places on marital harmony, on peace in the home called in Hebrew: 'shalom Bayit', we would understand the infiniteness of His love and compassion.
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Romans 3:23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, The Torah presents us with a simple way of dealing with a woman’s suspected adultery. If a man suspects his wife to have been unfaithful to him, as a matter of protection to the woman from the jealous husband, he is not to take the matter into his own hands. From the moment of his suspicion, he is not to have any intimacy with her, but he is to take his wife to the Temple in Jerusalem for her to be tested by the trial of ‘bitter waters’. This consisted of a Scripture-curse written and diluted in a mixture of water and dust from the Temple. The woman was to drink it then go to the hill country. If she survived the mixture, she would be immune from the bitter waters and at a later date conceive, if not she would quickly die of a loathsome disease (Numbers 5:19-31). The idea is about a man who, for a reason or another, maybe his wife’s unseemly behavior, suspects her of unfaithfulness. He only suspects her but cannot prove it, so he presents his case to God. The sages notice that whereas it is a prohibition to deface or erase the Name of God, the curse to be diluted in water contains the tetragramaton. Jewish sages concluded from this the extreme importance that God accords to solving marital problems. I think that God would agree that marriage being the cornerstone of a civilization; it must not only be kept pure, but also peaceful (Colossians 3:18-19). We see this importance in the story of the King of Persia and his wife Vashti who defied her husband in the sight of all his Princes. For the sake of domestic peace in every family in the Empire, she was not allowed to remain queen and her place was given to a more deserving one (Ester 1). In any case, the fate of the suspected woman is put into the hands of the only God who condemn or exonerate her by heavenly decree. We have a similar case in the Apostolic Scriptures. Miriam, a young bride to be receives a visitation. She then leaves to visit her cousin for three months only to return pregnant to the dismay of Joseph her betrothed. One could hardly blame him for not believing the angel story. In his case, there was no suspicion, so there was no need for the test. Miriam stood right beside him pregnant and he knew that he had nothing to do with it. In his eyes, Miriam was already condemned. Hadn’t it been for the angel that spoke to Joseph, she was to be stoned to death (Matthew 1:18-25). The remarkable parallel is that whereas Miriam was not subjected to the trial of bitter waters, she was still exonerated through heavenly intervention. When a suspected woman drinks the Temple mixture, she drinks the Word of God with His Name, and later conceives, Miriam did not drink the potion but gave birth to the One who would be called ‘The Mimrah: The Word (John 1). In a certain way, like the woman suspected of adultery, we are also all guilty and as we drink the Torah it condemns us to death. But those of us who have Messiah as the Shield of our Salvation are also exonerated by heavenly intervention. |
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