40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 132 (Numbers 5:11-6:21)

Episode Date: September 10, 2018

Chad and Daniel tackle one of the stranger texts in the Old Testament. When a husband suspects his wife of adultery a ritual is put forth to find out the truth. It involves drinking dirt and ink and a curse. What is going on here? Why would God set something like this up? How does the way Jesus handles accusations of adultery help us with this text? They then move on and discuss the Nazirite Vow. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network CHF Hattiesburg 

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. That means you can go to 1517.org. That's right, 1517.org is a thing now. NoMoreLegacy.com. I mean, if you go to 1517Legacy.com, you will end up at 1517.org. But you could just go to the numbers, 1517.org. That's where it's at now.

Go over there. You can check out the whole family of podcasts. Chad, by the time this releases, people will have around one week to sign up for the free event in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which you and I will both be at, along with Scott Keith, Cindy Koch, Blake Flatley, and Jared C. Wilson. It'd be a shame if you were somewhere down in the south, if you were like a couple hours from Mississippi. It'd be a real shame if you didn't get up on Saturday or get packed up on Friday night and drive down there to hattiesburg grab that hotel room come hang out with us at st john's

hattiesburg i would hate to have people have to live with that knowing that they could have and they didn't yeah we'd have to have some talks with them i'm afraid we'd have to discuss some priorities i'm thinking yeah i just don't want you guys to have to shoulder the burden like your whole rest of your life knowing because then you're going to see pictures and videos you're gonna be like i could have and i didn't no one wants that so why don't you just do it you could just you could just do it just go over to christophast.org go to the events page you can sign up for free make the plans get the babysitter come hang out in hattiesburg we're gonna do it so there you go that's the pitch i don't want you to live with that for your your whole life

instead come get freed up come come and receive all the blessings that that are encapsulated in the chf city event which is unlimited blessings all right where are we at numbers we stopped with a little teaser of some weird stuff here chad i mean this is one of these i feel like we're heading into some territory where when people have issues with the bible this is one of the things that might come up like you might be one of those people that you have a friend and you tell them like i just love the bible and they might say oh do you do you love numbers 511 And you might have to answer some difficult questions about a passage like this. If they get asked, simply pass on this podcast, 40 Minutes in the Old Testament.

That's right. And that will answer all their questions, or maybe at least some of them. I'm not saying you guys don't read your Bibles, but I am saying if you don't read your Bible a lot, this is one of those passages where I guarantee there are people listening right now that you didn't even know this was in here. I mean, I've read the Bible a lot of times, Chad, and sometimes every once in a while,

as I'm reading, I'll come across something like I've never seen it before. It'd be like, huh? Like this is one of those passages. Yeah, this is definitely a huh passage. Yeah, I've never been in a Bible study where this is discussed. Certainly never heard a sermon preached on it.

I don't think there's any songs or hymns written about Numbers chapter five either. Although if there's a hymn writer out there, I would love to challenge you to put this into a Christian hymn, just to see where you go with it. So yeah, in fact, I was telling my, last week I was telling my wife about this passage that we were going to be talking about on the podcast. And as I described it, she just sort of started shaking her head and she's like i i have never heard that before in my life so so without without further ado if you're wondering kind of what this is all about well and if you haven't maybe uh listened to the last podcast or you forgot what the teaser was

here it is we're going to start here at uh numbers 5 11 and it takes us through this section takes us through the end of end of the chapter and i hope uh i i hope that uh by the time that we we finish this that uh and kind of read it in tandem with a passage from the new testament from the gospel of john that maybe we'll have a little bit better if not understanding of it at least a little bit better grasp of how it interacts with with the new testament counterpart so here we are this is uh this particular passage you'll sometimes see it especially if you're if you're uh happen to read any kind of scholarly literature as the SOTAH, S-O-T-A-H. That's the Hebrew term for going astray or being unfaithful, committing adultery. It can be translated several different

ways. So the SOTAH is the Hebrew name ascribed to this particular passage because it has to do with the suspicion, not the proof, but the suspicion that a husband has that his wife has been unfaithful to him. So it's kind of laid out here as to what the situation is that leads to this and then what happens afterwards. So you have in the law, in the Old Testament law, that you can't simply have one person accuse you of something and that be sufficient. You have to have every matter confirmed by two or three witnesses. So in this particular case, there's a husband who it says is overcome by a spirit of jealousy. So he suspects that his wife has been unfaithful to him, but neither he nor anybody else is a witness to this. So we don't know why

he suspects her. We're not told that. We're simply told that he does. And so what's he going to do about it? Well, presumably he's already had the discussion with his wife, and maybe she's denied it. Maybe she's refused to answer him. Whatever the situation is, it has not yet been resolved. so uh what's going to happen if uh if he follows through with what's outlined here in numbers numbers chapter five is that he and his wife will go to the tabernacle or of course later to the temple in order that by this very strange uh very weird sort of ceremony her guilt or innocence will be determined this has sometimes been called a a trial by ordeal which i guess is uh is fitting somewhat fitting at least in this in this case because she is going to undergo something of an

ordeal uh specifically as we'll get to in a second it will involve drinking something and having drunk that her guilt or her innocence will be made evident in the reaction that her body has to what to what she drinks. So this is, this is kind of the way, kind of the way it goes. So a spirit of jealousy comes over him. That's verse 14. He suspects his wife. And so he brings his wife to the priest and he brings with, they bring with them an offering. It's some, it's some barley meal, no oil put on it no frankincense put on it it's called in fact it's called a grain offering of jealousy a grain offering of memorial a reminder of iniquity so this is a different very different kind of kind of offering it's most of the time you have oil and frankincense mixed

with meal this is just the raw stuff this is just the grain offering so they have the offering and uh the priest brings uh the wife before the lord so we're presumably this is in front of in front of the tabernacle and uh her hair is is unloosened which is which is interesting uh that typically is a sign of mourning in the in the in the bible so uh maybe that's why it's done here as with a lot of ritual passages we're just told what happens we're not told the why of what happens so there she is in front of the tabernacle with the priest her hair is is let loose and the grain offering is placed in her hands and here's what the priest does uh he has this yes first of this this long address that he that he says to uh to the woman it starts in verse 19 he says if no

man is laying with you and if you have not gone astray into uncleanness being under the authority of your husband be immune to this water of bitterness that brings a curse we'll get to the water in a second then he goes on if you however have gone astray being under the authority of your husband. And if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people by the Lord, making your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell. So more or less what happens when the, when the priest or what the priest is, is pronouncing in these words is that if she's innocent, nothing's going to happen to her. But if she's guilty, then her body will react in such a way that it will be evident.

It says your abdomen swell, your thigh waste away. We're not exactly sure what that would look like, what would happen to her body, but presumably it would be evident, and of course, it would be the result of this curse which is pronounced. All right, so we have the priest saying this, but what's up with this water of bitterness? Well, here's what happens. So the priest takes his earthenware vessel and he writes these whatever the what he said to the woman he writes these curses on a scroll so they're written down and then this this just keeps getting stranger and stranger so then he washes off the scroll so that so that the ink runs into runs into the water but there's one more ingredient in this and that is that he takes some some dust some dirt

from the floor of from the floor of the tabernacle and he mixes that in the water as well so it's kind of pause here for a second this all sounds very like we're still doing this in the church right oh yeah i mean this happens at least once a once a week or so once a month or so at my church yeah i mean i don't i don't know of anything even in the history of the church that's really uh even remotely like this uh but uh anyway i this this is kind of what's going down i mean just kind of finished what happened so he has this earthenware vessel with water in it he mixes in the ink from the curse which he's washed off the parchment where he wrote it and then he mixes in the dust from the floor of the tabernacle and mixes it together. And then she drinks this water.

And if nothing happens to her, then she's fine. She will, it says, be free and conceive and have children. But of course, if not, then these terrible things will, terrible things will happen to her. So, yeah, that's perhaps one of the most unusual chapters or partial chapters that we have in the entire Old Testament. Certainly one of the most unusual rituals that is performed. Now, as with some other things in the Torah, for instance, the year of Jubilee. We have no record in the rest of the Old Testament that this ever actually happened. I'm not saying it didn't, but we just don't have anything else in the Old Testament to compare it to. There was discussion of this by the rabbis in the century leading up to

the birth of Christ, as well as the century of his life. So we have some contemporary uh materials contemporary writings from from uh around the first century where the rabbis discussed this in such a way that it makes it sound like it was not taking place in in their day now whatever you whatever you think of this i mean if you're like completely offended by this or if you just think it's interesting or wherever you wherever you stand on on this i think we'd all agree that it is that it is odd and uh it makes you wonder exactly why it ended up here to to begin with and there's probably a number of women out there who are who are offended by this as well i've i i did uh when i was uh in graduate school i took a class on numbers and this is actually one

of the passages that we looked at and i remember reading several articles that were written from a a feminist perspective that this was like one of their go-to passages to to talk about the the oppressive patriarch patriarchy of of ancient Israel so of course you got that going on as well now I what I would like to do we'll see if Dan is in agreement with this what I would like to do is to look at this story in light of a parallel story, or at least a story sort of like this, that we find in the Gospel of John, beginning of chapter 8. And this is the story of a woman who is not accused of adultery, necessarily. It's not like they're trying to find out if she's guilty or innocent, but actually a woman who is caught in the act of adultery itself.

And I think kind of viewing these two, viewing these two together might give us a little bit better understanding of just just how radical a change that Christ brought about when when he came and stood there as the incarnate God, as the one who actually is the Torah himself, and how he interacted then with a somewhat parallel situation in John chapter 8. So you remember this story. Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives, and early that next morning, he goes to the temple, and everybody's coming to him. They're sitting down, and he's teaching them, all right? So keep in mind, first of all, that he's in the temple which is exactly the place where numbers the ordeal and numbers we were reading about was supposed to take place and while he's there the scribes and the pharisees bring in a woman who was caught in adultery and they set her in the midst of his classroom more or less

and they've got to they got to challenge they said teacher uh this woman has been caught in adultery in the very act. Now in the law of Moses, in the law of Moses commanded to stone such women. What then do you do? And John goes on to say they were saying this to test him and they might have grounds for accusing him. Of course, as the Pharisees were always trying to do, they're trying to catch Christ in the lie or trying to catch him contradicting the law of Moses or whatever it might be, they're always looking for grounds of accusing him, and they think that they have him in this

particular case, because they have a woman who's caught in the act of adultery, they bring her there, here's what Moses says, now Jesus, what do you say? This trap is actually, because they didn't actually, what they're saying is technically true, that

according to the law of Moses, you can stone somebody who's caught in adultery. However, this almost never happened and uh even and even at this point they almost never did this and so you might ask like what is what's the trap exactly here well the trap is if he says yeah stoner like the people will actually be horrified by that because it's not something that they did all that they didn't they didn't do that it's true that the law of moses permits it it doesn't demand it though and very rarely if ever did did they actually did anyone actually go through with

it so the trap is are you going to actually kill this person or are you going to disregard the law of moses and so in their minds there's a they got him in a no-win situation because if he goes through with it and says like yeah go ahead and stone her um they'll be able to turn around and say to the people like your rabbi is not merciful i mean he just killed this woman we wouldn't have done that and if he doesn't they'll say he doesn't care about the law and that's that's the setup yeah yeah and so how does he respond he stoops down and starts to write with his finger on the ground which they uh which of course is is going to lead to nothing else than persisting in in their questioning of him says they they persisted in asking him and so he he straightens up and he

says these uh these famous lines he who is without sin among you let him be the first to cast the stone at her and then he stoops down again and he writes on the ground again and then if you know the end of this story the uh the ones who brought the woman where they began to go out one by one beginning with the oldest and when christ was left alone and the woman where she was in the midst he straightens up and says, woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? And she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more. Now, the reason that I think it's good to look at this particular story in light of what we were just looking at in in the book of numbers is we have we have somewhat of a of a similar situation

here of course you have it's not the husband bringing bringing a woman that uh his wife that he suspects of adultery but it is it's the leaders the religious leaders of the day who are bringing a woman that they say has been caught in the very very act of of adultery and interestingly actually what brought me to this particular passage what i didn't just think of it but i was looking for parallels to what we read in Numbers, and this one popped up. And what popped up was the connection between the dust of the tabernacle and Christ riding on the dust of the ground, which I thought was an intriguing connection between these two passages. Now, I would give quite a bit of money to know what Christ was riding on the ground, and theories abound as to what he wrote there.

Was he just doodling? Was he writing accusations against those who were accusing the woman? What exactly was he writing? Of course, we're not told. But what he was doing in writing in the dust reminds me of the dust that's connected with the accusation against the woman back in the book of Numbers. except in this particular case here you have god himself riding in the dust in the in the book of numbers you have the priest adding the dust to the concoction that the woman is to drink in this particular case what happens is it's not so much that the woman is found guilty or innocent

either one. It's that there is no condemnation that's pronounced against her. So you have a trial by ordeal in the book of Numbers to determine a woman's innocence or guilt. Here you have a woman that even though she's declared to be guilty by those who are accusing her, when she stands before God himself and he writes in the dust, he turns around to her and says that he does not condemn her. And so it's not a matter of simply being found guilty or innocent in this particular case. It's a matter of standing there, guilty as accused, and yet being pronounced uncondemned and forgiven by God himself. And not going through some sort of trial ordeal but simply being pronounced forgiven and clean and and not condemned by the lord himself

as he stands there in in his temple yeah so i've got i got some thoughts go for it first speculation i i am of the old school opinion that is one of the when you talk about what jesus is writing i think that it's it's a good possibility that he was writing out the law now i'll tell you why I think that. One, whatever he's writing seems to like go in tandem with the people dropping their stones and walking away. So he says, whoever is without sin, you go ahead and throw that stone. And he's writing. And it would seem that a good thing to write, it makes sense that a good thing to write would be to write the law. If you're without sin, here, let me explain what sin is. The other thing is this, that the law was written with the finger of God

into earth, into stone. And if God has a finger, it belongs to Jesus. Jesus is the word of God tabernacled and wrapped in flesh. And so the same finger of God, as the Pharisees come in and say, the law says this they are speaking to the one with whom's finger carved the law in the tablets of stone and so if i don't know if this is the case but it's too awesome to not be the case that that jesus then takes that same finger of god and starts writing into the earth the law and then you have the the dust correlation and all of this language of uh of curse and this kind of stuff we know that jesus becomes a curse for us i mean this is this is an you know an isaiah paul talks about this in romans that he becomes a curse and and so and the law is the law is a curse

uh for the sinner and so he's writing that down another thing that's crazy about that is that you have this this thing that this woman has to drink and jesus says you're not condemned but the language of drinking condemnation is not it's not a foreign concept to jesus either who says like father let this cup pass me by but not my will but your will be done and so you do have this god wrapped in flesh who who first wrote the law potentially writing the law again in the dirt who is willing to drink the cup of condemnation meant for the woman that is not really on trial because she's she's caught in the act it's like they have videotape footage he says i don't condemn you because he is going to bear the curse of the law and he's going to drink that curse for her

so i i think the the language of of having to do these things and like write out a curse and then drink the curse this i mean this all is very this all sounds a whole lot like what christ is going to to do for all of us i would even say this that since there is zero record of of this little ritual taking place never mind this taking place in someone being found guilty i do think that what you have is god setting up this insane thing where he becomes the judge because what he says is like do this do this do this there's this curse and sin is a curse and so he affirms that that sin is a curse that may have ever drink this and then if this and this and this happens you know she's guilty which we have no record of that ever happening and there's not any reason

to believe that ever did happen and so what god has done is in the case of women and adultery You could be super offended by this, and this is how I've always dealt with this passage. Or you could say that God has set up a way for the verdict to lie strictly with him in a way that seems insane. Like this seems crazy, but it's crazy enough that you can't manipulate it. That you can't, corruption can't, you can't rig this, man. I mean this is an insane ritual and I think the reason it's insane is because uh in cases where husbands suspect their wife of adultery maybe like this sounds like a system where maybe a guy just wants to get rid of his wife because he's got a side piece and so he's like oh yeah no she's

committed adultery and women and she's like no no I haven't and he's like nope she did like what do you do if you can't prove it God's like don't worry I got this he sets up this insane thing that you can't possibly corrupt because you have to have this insane result. And so what God has done is built in this protection, um, to where there can not be condemnation where he does not want it. Um, and so I actually think it's a protective measure against corruption, not some corrupt practice. And I think it's intentionally sort of just odd and sort of ridiculous, but ridiculous in a way that well how are you going to fake this like if these things don't happen then then she's not guilty it's up to that's and we have no right we have no

we have no illustration of this ever happening yeah i was uh when you were talking i was thinking of something that i that i read in connection with uh with john chapter 8 in particular that uh at the time of at the time of christ in the rabbinic writings that that remain that there was there was such a great concern about scenarios exactly the way that you've described them coming up where a husband just wants to get rid of his wife or he's been he's been cheating and he just simply accuses his wife of cheating so that he can he can have a legitimate reason for divorcing her the fear was so great that would happen that in the rabbinic laws, this is not Bible stuff, this is just the rabbinic laws of the day, they said, this

was kind of their spin on numbers, they said that if a husband is guilty himself, and yet it's not known, but he is guilty, and he brings his wife to accuse her and to have her drink this particular potion, if you will, even if she's guilty, it will not have any dire consequences on her if he himself is guilty. So this was the rabbi's way of kind of spinning this around and saying, listen, if the husband is guilty, then he just needs to shut his mouth. The last thing that he needs to do is bring his wife and accuse her of the very same thing that he himself is guilty of. And I think that's also part of what's behind the accusers, the people who brought the woman to Jesus, leaving the way that they did, because they themselves knew their own law required

that they be innocent, that they be law keepers if they're going to bring a woman and accuse her of breaking one of God's law. So it fits with what you were saying, that if he was writing the law and the dust. They see the law. They realize that they have no moral ground to stand upon because they have broken the law. And so they leave, beginning with the oldest, one by one until none are left. I was thinking also, just as kind of the Old Testament background here, you may remember from back in Exodus that when the golden calf was destroyed by Moses, he ground it up and he sprinkled it into the water and he made the people drink it. I think that's probably kind of the background of this, because this was perhaps the way that Moses himself was determining who was guilty of participating in the worship of the golden calf and who was not.

We're not told that, but there is an intriguing parallel here to what happens in Numbers. Also, as you pointed out, the drinking of wrath is a prominent Old Testament theme. we see that also in the gospel of uh the gospel of christ where he's he's he's praying to the father to take this cup from him but that is that is a thoroughly entrenched old testament idea god talks about making the nations drink his wrath or even making israel drink his judgment so this idea of drinking judgment or drinking wrath or drinking condemnation from the lord's cup is a is a is an old testament notion that is spread all through all through the gospels as well as in the Psalms. So all of that kind of pulled together provides the context for what

we see in John chapter 8, where God himself, as the judge, pronounces forgiveness, pronounces not condemnation upon this woman, and thereby, in an unforgettable way, really exemplifies the way that he deals with each of us. Because, I mean, everybody can bring us and accuse us of whatever it is, whatever commandment we're breaking, and yet the Lord stands there and pronounces against us the verdict of innocent, the verdict of not guilty, the verdict of righteous, because he himself has drunk the cup of wrath. He himself has taken on the curses of the law,

and thereby being condemned, we stand uncondemned in him. I think that you can look at this passage and I'm sure initially you might be like that is what a horrific thing for women but I really do think that it actually

exists for the opposite reason I think it exists to protect women from corruption, it's not those passages that exist to afflict women uh because again if you've never seen it happen and you can't manipulate this you can't corrupt this uh and uh and so maybe that will help you with your as you're answering the question to

your to your friend do you think they got you yeah i mean think of it if you're innocent i mean innocent people have been sent to prison innocent people have been executed because of bad juries and and inept lawyers and corrupt judges and all that kind of stuff so if you're innocent and you have the opportunity for god himself to be your judge the one who cannot be corrupted the one who is goodness himself then there's nothing better right there he is the one that you want to decide your case so yeah because you're right you're right to not trust men yeah absolutely yeah i mean i i mean i i hear you loud and clear i did yeah and i i think god knows better than to trust us too

absolutely yeah so maybe that'll give you a little bit of uh of help working through uh working through that the the next time that it might come up in a bible study conversation reading your scriptures whatever it might be okay um let's move on we got a few more minutes left So I think we'll jump into chapter six, talk about the Nazarites. You ever taken a Nazarite vow? I have not. Yeah, I haven't either. That's still, that's on my bucket list.

There were a couple of different kinds of Nazarites in the Old Testament. And of course, they come up in the New Testament as well. And that's pretty much what this chapter is about. Up until the last few verses, it's about those who willingly take on what's called the vow of the Nazarite. Now, the vow that's described here is a temporary vow. Most of the Nazarites with which we are acquainted in the scriptures are those who are actually lifelong Nazarites. The most prominent among these being, of course, Samson. But there were others as well.

Samuel was also one who was dedicated from his birth to be a Nazirite. And in the New Testament, it seems as if John the Baptist himself was also one who was was a Nazirite, at least by his lifestyle. That's what that's what I would infer. But in Chapter six of Numbers, what's what's described here is those who take a temporary vow, temporary meaning could be a few weeks, could be a few months. We're not really given a time frame here, but they take a temporary vow to become a Nazirite. Now, what does that entail? Well, it's basically a period in which, whatever the reason might be, a person decides that they want to abstain from certain activities as a way of reminding themselves of God's dedication to them and their dedication, their service to the Lord. I guess you could, maybe the closest that we could come to comparing this to what happens sometimes in Christian churches is some people take, not a vow, but they practice fasting during the season of Lent.

So they willingly abstain from certain kinds of food during a temporary period, and it's their way of, instead of focusing upon what they're going to eat, focusing on prayer. It's a way of reminding themselves of their mortality. It's a way of preparing for the feast that will follow the period of the fast. So I guess you could somewhat make the parallel there between between the Nazirite vow and Lenten fasting. And this in this particular case for the Nazirite, they did fast, except they were fasting from any kind of alcoholic beverage. So not even even simply the fruit of a grape, not necessarily fermented, but anything that came from the vine, they they did not consume. They also, I guess you could say, fasted from haircuts, if if we could say that. They did not shave. They did not cut their hair during this period.

And one other aspect of this, the third of these, is that they could not come into any kind of contact with a dead body, even if it was one of their own family members. So this was a way in which they entered into this temporary time period of devotion to the Lord. and it wasn't like a hermit existence they continued to to uh interact with family and friends it doesn't seem to be that kind of a monk-like existence uh but instead they engage willfully engaged in in this lifestyle which which went refraining from three different things for a period of time at the end of which they would offer certain sacrifices and then their their hair would be would be cut and uh actually burned uh on the sacrifice on top of on top of the altar so that's a that's a the temporary nazirite vow the the lifelong nazirite vow which we read in

about with the life of samson and samuel and and john the baptist that typically is something that begins actually with the mother herself basically giving the child over into lifelong service to the lord and uh part of the main part of that was main symbol of that was to uh to refrain from from cutting from cutting the hair well uh i i've got a couple more things to say about that i think we'll have to we'll have to wait until until next time uh to kind of wrap that up because we're coming close to coming close to the end today but we'll we'll pick up there and at the end of that chapter we'll uh we will spend a few minutes talking about what's called the usually called the the erotic benediction the benediction of aaron which uh is as i hope to convince you is

is wrongly named it's not aaron's benediction it's uh it's instead uh something else which you can find out when we get back together next week oh look at look at him doing that uh doing that teaser again yeah i don't know if that was as good a tease as last time but it's pretty good Maybe people will check back in. Yeah, it's pretty good, though. I'm excited to get to Judges where we find out that Samson's the worst Nazirite ever as you talk about the things that you're not supposed to do. And he's like, those are all the things I'm going to do.

Here's a list of things that you can't do. Well, consider all of those broken. Doing all those things. All right, guys, Hattiesburg next weekend. We want to hang out with you. don't don't shoulder all that regret for the rest of your life you can do it we're gonna see us you can do it too all right chad we'll see you next week in hattiesburg yeah that's right see you there

Oh, yeah.