Ordeal of the bitter water


The ordeal of the bitter water was a trial by ordeal administered to the wife whose husband suspected her of adultery but who had no witnesses to make a formal case. The ordeal is further explained in the Talmud, in the seventh tractate of Nashim.
A sotah is a woman suspected of adultery who undergoes the ordeal of bitter water or ordeal of jealousy as described and prescribed in the Priestly Code, in the Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible. The term "sotah" itself is not found in the Hebrew Bible but is Mishnaic Hebrew based on the verse "if she has strayed" in Numbers 5:12.

Hebrew Bible

The account of the ordeal of bitter water given in the Book of Numbers is as follows:

Jewish tradition

Mishnah and Talmud

According to the Mishnah, it was the practice for the woman to first be brought to the Sanhedrin, before being subjected to the ordeal. Repeated attempts would be made to persuade the woman to confess, including multiple suggestions to her of possible mitigating factors; if she confessed, the ordeal was not required.
The regulations require that the ordeal take place when the woman is brought to an Israelite priest, or when she is brought before God. The Mishnah reports that, in the time of the Second Temple, she was taken to the East Gate of the Temple, in front of the Nikanor gate.
The woman is required by the biblical passage to have loosened hair during the ritual; this is often taken to be a symbol of the woman's supposed shame, but according to Josephus, it was merely the standard behaviour for anyone accused of any crime, when they appeared before the Sanhedrin. The Mishnah also states that the garment she was wearing was ripped to expose her heart. A rope was tied above her breasts so that her clothes did not completely fall off. The Mishnah, however, argues that the clothing on the woman's upper body was also stripped away, leaving her bare-breasted.

Trial

The ordeal

This trial consisted of the wife having to drink a specific potion administered by the priest. The text does not specify the amount of time needed for the potion to take effect; 19th century scholars suspected it was probably intended to have a fairly immediate effect. The Mishnah mentions there could also be a suspension of the ordeal for one, two or three years, if she has an acquittal. Maimonides records the traditional Rabbinical view: "Her belly swells first and then her thigh ruptures and she dies". Others maintain that since the word "thigh" is often used in the Bible as a euphemism for various reproductive organs, in this case it may mean the uterus, the placenta or an embryo, and the woman would survive.
Nachmanides points out that of all the 613 commandments, it is only the sotah law that requires God's specific co-operation to make it work. The bitter waters can only be effective miraculously.
The text specifies that the potion should be made from water and dust; in the masoretic text, the water used for the potion must be holy water, and the Targum interprets it as water from the Molten Sea, but the Septuagint instead requires running water. The passage argues that the curse was washed into the water; it is thought that this idea derives from a belief that the words of a curse exist in their own right. Others argue that the curse is a euphemism for a miscarriage or infertility.
The potion also had to be mixed in an earthenware vessel; this may have been because the potion was regarded as a taboo which could be spread by contact, and therefore also made the vessel taboo, necessitating its subsequent destruction. However, the Talmud and Rashi explain that this vessel is chosen to contrast the woman's predicament with her behavior. She gave the adulterer to drink choice wine in valuable goblets; therefore, let her drink bitter water in a worthless clay vessel.
Maimonides further writes: "When she dies, the adulterer because of whom she was compelled to drink will also die, wherever he is located. The same phenomena, the swelling of the belly and the rupture of the thigh, will also occur to him. All the above applies provided her husband never engaged in forbidden sexual relations in his life. If, however, her husband ever engaged in forbidden relations, the waters do not check his wife."

The offering

The husband was required to make a sacrifice to God, as part of the ritual, probably due to a general principle that no one should seek answers from God without giving something in return. This offering is required to be placed in the wife's hands, and is literally described as her offering for her; scholars think that it is the man's offering, in relation to the ordeal of his wife, and that her holding of it is merely symbolic of this.
The offering specified is one tenth of an ephah of barley meal, unaccompanied by oil or frankincense; this is the cheaper type of flour, unlike the flour specified for all other biblical sacrifices. The specification is now thought to be a rare survival of an earlier period, in which there was no restriction on the types of flour which could be used for sacrifices, although the Mishnah argues that it was a reference to the bestial nature of adultery, coarse flour being the food of beasts.

False accusations

If the woman was unharmed by the bitter water, the rules regard her as innocent of the accusation. The account in the Book of Numbers states that the man shall be free from blame. This is not to be confused with the Deuteronomic Code, which pertains to when a man accuses his wife of pre-marital sex; when accusation is disproven, the husband is to be fined, and is no longer to have the right of divorcing the wife There is more reason to fine and whip the man who accuses his wife of pre-marital sex than the husband of the sotah woman. The man who accuses his wife of pre-marital sex has no proof about his wife when he accuses her, whereas by a sotah woman, the husband initially warned her not to seclude herself with a particular man, which she thereafter did. Therefore, whether she is innocent of the accusation of adultery or not, she still has caused reasonable suspicion in the eyes of her husband.
The rabbinical interpretation of is that when a woman accused of adultery who was innocent drinks the bitter water, even if she was previously unable to conceive, she will now conceive and give birth to a male.

Cessation of the ordeal

According to Mishnah, Sotah, 9: the practice was abolished some time during the first century CE under the leadership of Yohanan ben Zakkai. But even if it had not been abolished, the rite would have sunk into abeyance with the fall of the Temple, because, according to the Law, the ceremony could not be performed elsewhere. Explanations in rabbinical literature vary concerning cessation of the practice. Yohanan Ben Zakkai stated:
Rabbi Hanina of Sura said in Talmud Sotah:

Christian references

Although the actual ordeal was not practiced in Christianity it was referenced by Christian writers through the ages in relation to both the subject of adultery, and also the wider practice of trial by ordeal. Additionally, some early Christian legends, such as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, embroider the life of Mary, mother of Jesus with accounts including Mary undergoing a version of the ordeal.

Abortion interpretation

Several commentaries on the Bible maintain that the ordeal is to be applied in the case of a woman who has become pregnant, allegedly by her lover.
One reading is that the ordeal results in a prolapsed uterus if she is guilty. Some interpretations of the ordeal describe the bitter potion as an abortifacient, which induces a purposeful abortion or miscarriage if the woman is pregnant with a child which her husband alleges is another man’s. If the fetus aborts as a result of the ordeal, this presumably confirms her guilt of adultery, otherwise her innocence is presumed if the fetus does not abort.

Secular analysis

The text appears to suggest first that the offering should occur before the ordeal, and then that it should occur after it.
Due to the awkwardness of the idea that the wife has to drink the potion twice, secular textual scholars argue that either the first drinking must be a later addition to the text, or that the whole account of the ordeal must be spliced together from two earlier descriptions.
Noting that there are two descriptions of the location for the ritual and two occasions on which the punishment for the woman is mentioned, the division into two earlier documents, first suggested by Bernhard Stade is typically as follows:
Other secular Biblical scholars think that the ordeal is itself a fusion of two earlier rituals, one using water, and the other dust. The use of dust might be connected to necromancy. In other historic semitic cultures there are many instances in which holy water was regarded as taboo, and therefore that contact with it, or its consumption, was dangerous.

Modern applications

According to scholars such as Helena Zlotnick, after the ordeal of bitter water was no longer practiced it remained a reference point in the search for replacements for the test of adultery.

Similar rituals

Trials by ordeal are found in other societies of the ancient Near East such as in the Laws of Hammurabi.
Historic Muslim Arabic culture similarly had an adultery ordeal, although in scientific terms, compared to the Israelite ritual it relied more on nausea, than on directly poisoning the woman. In this Arabic ritual, the woman simply took oaths at Mecca attesting to her innocence, and asking the divinity to cause her to have a miscarriage/abortion, should she be lying; but, on the way to Mecca, she would be forced to travel on a camel, between two bags of dung.
Ordeals involving the risk of harm, including potential injury resulting from the drinking of certain potions, were common in antiquity; in parts of Europe, their judicial use even lasted until the late Middle Ages. Such ordeals were once believed to result in a direct decision by a deity, about the guilt or innocence of the party/parties undertaking the ordeal; typically divine intervention was believed to prevent the innocent being harmed, or to ensure that the guilty were.