Bible Dictionary
Water of jealousy
The water of jealousy was the water used in the Mosaic procedure for testing a wife suspected of unfaithfulness. It accompanied an oath and curse before the Lord; the water itself was not treated as a natural poison.
Definition
The water of jealousy is a phrase for the water used in the Mosaic procedure concerning a wife suspected of unfaithfulness. The water served a symbolic and ministerial role within an oath and solemn curse before the Lord.
Biblical Usage
The suspected woman stood before the priest, who mixed holy water with dust from the sanctuary floor, wrote and blotted out the curses, and gave her the potion to drink after she answered “Amen.” The procedure distinguished innocence from guilt by divine judgment.
Historical Background
The water itself was described as harmless rather than a natural poison. The essential element was the oath and imprecation, with the water serving as their appointed symbol and instrument.
Scripture References
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
A phrase employed (not, however, in Scripture) to denote the water used in the solemn ordeal prescribed by the law of Moses (Num. 5:11-31) in cases of “jealousy.”
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(Numbers 5:11-31) The ritual prescribed consisted in the husband’s bringing before the priest the woman suspected of infidelity, and the essential part of it is unquestionably the oath to which the “water” was subsidiary, symbolical and ministerial. With her he was to bring an offering of barley meal. As she stood holding the offering, so the priest stood holding till earthen vessel of holy water mixed with the dust from the floor of the sanctuary, and, declaring her free from all evil consequences if innocent, solemnly devoted her in the name of Jehovah to be “a curse and an oath among her people” if guilty. He then “wrote these curses in a book and blotted them out with the bitter water.” and having thrown the handful of meal on the altar, “caused the woman to drink” the potion thus drugged, she moreover answering to the words of his imprecation, “Amen, amen.” Josephus adds, if the suspicion was unfounded, she obtained conception; if true, she died infamously, (This was entirely different from most trials of this kind, for the bitter water the woman must drink was harmless in itself, and only by a direct act of God could it injure her it guilty while in most heathen trials the suspected party must take poison, or suffer that which only a miracle would save them from if they were innocent.—ED.)