The Book of Confusion?

"Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness."  1 Timothy 6:11

The Book of Confusion?
By Rev. William Dohle

It happens sometimes.  Confusion!  We open our Bible, thinking that God is going to magically speak to us from its pages, and we read something that throws us into more of a tizzy that we were before.

Take today's reading...from the book of Numbers.  Numbers 4 to be exact.  This reading talks about what to do should a husband suspect his wife has been cheating.  Let me share with you some of the verses behind this incident.

‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— then he is to take his wife to the priest...The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water...The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”
‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her.
If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

So... do you understand it?  It's talking about what to do with a woman suspected in adultery and it talks about mixing up a magical potion, making her drink it under oath, and watching what the potion does to her.  Does it cause her stomach to explode?  Or is she alright?

What do you do with a text like this?  How would you write a blog about THAT?

I've been working at this all morning and this is what I've discovered...

• Some people who believe that the Bible is inerrant just ignore this passage... A conversation with a friend of mine confirmed this.  He said that in order to keep the Bible inerrant and infallible, such verses need to be dismissed as merely ritual descriptions rather than actual commands from God...of course that doesn't account for the fact that "the Lord told Moses" is written before this passage.  Nor does it really address who gives us the power to decide which commands we follow and which ones we don't.
• A look online didn't help much.  Nor did the notes at the bottom of The Lutheran Study Bible which said, "Some commentators point to this verse and the ordeal as examples of unfair of demeaning treatment of women in the Bible.  Such an interpretation fails to appreciate the seriousness of adultery and its consequences."  So much for a critical look at this text.
• A message to another friend, Rabbi Daniel Bogard, proved more helpful.  He pointed out that this text was probably never put into practice in the first place and that the idea of making a woman drink a magical potion to determine her guilt was actually written in favor of the woman and not the man.  Whose stomach would explode like this?  And what would it say about a man who would drag his wife up for public humiliation simply on a hunch?  If this were true, this passage was written as a hyperbole, something so exaggerated that it was meant to keep the peace in the home rather than be followed literally.

I appreciate these sources.  They help me understand.  They also help me see how hard it is just to read the Bible and to get anything out of it.  There's a reason why we have interpreters and sources, saints and sages throughout the ages to help us understand it.  There's a reason why Scripture is read in the community...because if left by ourselves we will surely misinterpret and misread what was written to help us all.

Imagine a man reading this passage, growing jealous and suspicious, and forcing his wife today to drink something like this!  How terribly abusive that would be!  How wrong that would become!  He may claim he was "following the Bible" and doing what it said to do, but he would be violating the spirit of the Law while following the letter of it.

Perhaps a chapter like this should call us back to our faith community.  There we can read Scripture together.  There we can study and know and search it for meaning.  There we can hear the sages and saints of old tell us their interpretation.  There we can seek God's guidance and God's voice which is still speaking even now.

There we can know what to do with the sinner in all of us!

Almighty God, you speak to us through your Word, alive and testified to in Scripture.  Lead us into community that together we might search out and know you more.  Amen.