Adultery not Abortion
In Numbers 5:11-31 pro-choice advocates use this verse to say that God is pro-choice as well and I think someone would really have to go through some serious illogical rationalities to come to the conclusion that this passage is about abortion. When it is really about God’s righteous judgment upon the sinner, purification of the conscience, and about the sanctity of the marriage bed. It’s wrong to say something that God does not say. I want to make 7 comments both very detailed.
1. Husband has jealousy in concerns to his wife rather she done the dirty deed of adultery or not (v.11-14). So far there is no mention that she is "with child". Jealousy leads to a great many evils, murder is often done out of jealousy. As men full of testosterone we can be quick to take matters into our own hands. The offering is without taste “no oil and frankincense). For sin has no benefit, has the exact opposite effect resulting in misery, and should not be enjoyed, the offering of worship, on the other hand, is enjoyed by all parties (God, the giver, and the servants of God Leviticus 2:1-3). It’s cool how enjoyment comes to all when there will (mind, body, and emotions) is in God.
2. The accused woman comes before God (v.16), dust from the tabernacle floor where the presence of God is put into holy (set apart for God’s use) water (v.17). This is not poison, this is not an abortion wholesale pill, nor a procedure done by a so-called “trusted” physician. This dust from The Grand Physician who can be fully trusted, God, whose judgments are always 100% just. His dust is not there to alleviate a woman of what the doctor says to the victim (a woman seeking to murder her baby) “your problem.” The doctor referring to the baby inside the womb. Is that what human life is? A problem to be dealt with? No.
3. She is set before the LORD no mention of a husband accompanying her this sin which is unseen is seen before God. What great mercy and grace she is given, for if the man does the same thing he is executed with his mistress (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22) for God has given him authority over his wife a high honor and responsibility in the sight of God (v.19, 20, 29). Rather she did it or not the priest pronounces the oath (v.19-21) before God and she undergoes this process to assist her husband in easing his jealous conscience. “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:4). The only words she is say’s is “Amen, so be it.” She says this and will be confident for she has not done it or she will receive the punishment.
4. Controversial part in 21-22 “May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’” (v.22). Thigh could also be translated as hip, you know the phrase “child-bearing hips”, bowels could also mean abdomen. The guilty woman her judgment is assumed but I can’t say with 100% certainty that she will not bear children. We do see a contrast between verses 27 and 28 where judgment is executed on the guilty “a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself, and is clean, then she shall be free and may conceive children.” (v.27c-28) for she belongs to her husband, God’s judgment is always right. I would see this as God’s mercy to the guilty. She deserves death but for some reason, God deals kindly with his daughters. The husband receives freedom for his iniquity, his emotional desire to sin (v.31). This is where I want to bring in another passage because the right way to interpret a piece of Scripture is not to put words in God’s mouth. Single out a passage but to look at the whole of Scripture. Nowhere is abortion implied, or even if the woman is “with child”, I think this a key aspect of the woman’s life that God would have included, for according to Himself a person has intrinsic value and this is found in God, all bear His image, whom of which all are created in His image (Genesis 1:26-28). So why does God not include this important detail? She is not pregnant. God includes this key fact in another portion of His law “If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, (Exodus 21:22-23). We see in this detailed description “with child”, “gives birth prematurely” So Andrew how would you exegete this passage? In all seriousness. Why aren’t these crucial details in Exodus 21:22-23 not included in Numbers 5:11-22? Also, what does Exodus 21:22-23 tell you about the life inside of the womb? How does God feel about the preventable loss of life? What is the penalty for killing a baby according to Exodus 21:22-23? The heart of God is for life.
5. The deeper meaning of this passage is about God. A test is
given (drinking the bitter holy water) and the results of that test will be
evident. Oath to God is not something that is to be trifled for this world and
everything in it belongs to Him “for it is His footstool” (Matthew 5:35). The
deeper meaning is found in the ceremonial ritual the accused adulterer must
partake in. Which reflects much of what Jesus did for us on the cross. For this
whole action performed by the priest is about the woman remembering, seeing,
visualizing the sin she committed before her very eyes. And drinking it down,
drinking the sin, just like the drinking of the golden calf (Exodus 32:20), if
the woman who is drinking did not commit adultery she might find it interesting
and amusing. I think that the holy water won’t be bitter. “Then the priest
shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of
bitterness. And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that
brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and
cause bitter pain…And the priest shall take a handful of the grain
offering, as its memorial portion, and burn it on the altar, and afterward
shall make the woman drink the water.” (v. 23, 24, 26).
6. Jesus as our Great High Priest has drunk our sin on the cross. The Bible connects God’s wrath with the imagery of a cup. A Holy Cup.
“Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.” (Jeremiah 25:15),
“Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.” (Isaiah 51:17)
“And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup (the cup of God’s wrath) pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”(Matthew 26:39 emphasis added)
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21),
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13). God will punish sin,
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,” (Romans 1:18).
I like what AW Pink wrote in his book The Attributes of God “We are ever prone to regard sin lightly, to gloss over its hideousness, to make excuses for it. But the more we study and ponder God’s abhorrence of sin and His frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely are we to realize its heinousness.”
7. Jesus drank the cup of judgment so that we, those who trust in Jesus, born again of the Holy Spirit, would no longer incur judgment. For Jesus drank the judgment we deserve on the cross. Through Christ alone is this possible. My heart cries for the victims of abortion and God has an ever ringing in His ear of those who are being murdered, “blood cries out to Me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). Two victims the murder of the human, innocent baby, and the deceived woman, who out of self-preservation and deception, pays a fee to legally kill a human person. Jesus filled with the Spirit of God at birth and John the Baptist not kicked but leaped inside of Elizabeth, Jesus was a fetus at that point, for John was only 6 months old (Luke 1:41). Elizabeth was then filled with the Holy Spirit and encouraged Mary on the way.
This post was actually a response to a friend of mine who used this verse in order to try and prove to me that God advocates for abortion. I know this is not about coffee, just a theological, political, and human rights issue/abuse.
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