From our location in human history, the “trial by ordeal” for a woman would be unthinkable!
Women today may feel they have just cause to find objectionable passages in the Old Testament regarding relations between men and women. Numbers 5 would be one of them. After all, where is the part about a man having been unfaithful and his wife has jealous thoughts? It isn’t there. But reading present attitudes back into a scene 3,400 years ago is fraught with problems. The fact was that God had built many safeguards into that culture to protect women, and their place in society was highly valued, though not by modern standards of equality and independence. The Lord did not design man and woman to be competitive, but complementary. God, in His patience, provision, and protection of Israel, His “wife” (Isa 54:6), modeled what a husband should be. So when the Lord says to Israel, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Ex 20:5), He is not confessing a fault. God’s jealousy is wonderful! We think of jealousy as damaging, controlling, unwarranted. But while it can be those things when coming from selfishness and distrust, jealousy can also be a loving guardedness, a protective loyalty that seeks pure love between husband and wife. Certainly if this passage were thrown on the big screen, we would recall that Christian marriage should be a small picture of Christ and His Church. In that case, there would never be a cause for concern about His love and loyalty. But what about our side of things? It’s no accident that James writes, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (Jas 4:4). Like a wife and a lover, neither God nor the world will be content with half a heart. So today “may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God” (2 Thess 3:5).