WATERS OF JEALOUSY. The law of Moses (Num. v. I x-3r) supposes the ease of a husband on whom has fallen the spirit of jealousy' in regard to his wife, whom he suspects but cannot prove to have been guilty of unchaste intercourse with another man ; and it makes provision for the removal of a state of feeling entirely incompatible with domestic felicity and order, and which was a scandal in Israel not to be continued. The rule prescribed with this view was, that the man should bring his wife to tbe priest, by whom she should be placed before the Lord, who alone could manifest whether she was guilty or not An offering was to be brought by the man as an offering of memorial, that is not of thanksgiving (Lev. 2), but of his wife's transgression, actual or supposed (rr.,;tr; it,), and hence it was to be composed not of fine meal but of barley-meal, and to be without oil or incense, to betoken the severity of the man's feel ing. The priest was then to take holy water--(per haps from the laver in the sanctuary, Exod. xxx. IS), and mix with it some dust from the floor of the tabernacle ; and having uncovered the woman's head, and put the memorial-offering into her hands, and holding in his own the basin with the water called here the bitter water that brings a curse' (crriNnri nInnri In), lie was to administer to her an oath as to her innocence, at the same time assuring her that if she was guilty, and took the oath falsely, the most dreadful consequences to herself would ensue ; whereas if she was guiltless this would be made manifest by her being left un harmed. Having made a record in writing of the
penalty that would follow if she were guilty, the priest was then to wash this out with water from the basin ; to indicate, doubtless, its power of purgation, and to encourage the woman to swallow it if conscious of innocence. The woman was then to drink the bitter water ; and having thus made her appeal to God as the Omniscient, her innocence would be proved by her remaining un hurt, whilst her guilt would be proved by the water causing her belly to swell, and her thigh to rot ; thus, as the Talmudists remark (Solah, making her suffer in those parts of her body con cerned in her sin. This ordeal is only a special application of the general principle which pervades the whole theocratic institute, that judgment is with the Lord, and that to him must all causes be referred which baffled the skill of men (Dent. i. 17). A belief like this seetns to pervade the race, and to lie at the basis of all the ordeals by which men have sought to establish the guilt or innocence of those against whom crimes were alleged which only the Deity could detect (see Grotius on ver. 27, and Encyclop. Britan, xvi. 7o1).—W. L. A.