Bible Strands
Numbers 5:18
After the priest has the woman stand before the LORD, he is to let down her hair and place in her hands the grain offering of memorial, which is the grain offering for jealousy. The priest is to hold the bitter water that brings a curse.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The priest directs the suspected woman to stand before the LORD at the tabernacle entrance, positioning her at the precise moment the jealousy ordeal begins. He prepares her for the ritual that will determine her marital fidelity through divine judgment.
The words — וּפָרַע (u./fa.Ra') translates literally as "and he will let loose," describing the priest's action of loosening the woman's hair. This gesture immediately precedes the placement of the jealousy grain offering into her hands.
The thread — The loosening of hair parallels Leviticus 13:45, where it marks ritual uncleanness, while the grain offering and bitter water extend the sequence from Numbers 5:15 and 5:17. These elements form a single procedural chain for testing marital suspicion.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to observe the exact physical steps the priest must perform before any oath or curse is spoken. It demands attention to how ritual preparation mediates divine judgment without assuming the outcome.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:
Cross-references
- Leviticus 13:45 A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’
- Numbers 5:15 then he is to bring his wife to the priest. He must also bring for her an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He is not to pour oil over it or put frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, an offering of memorial as a reminder of iniquity.
- Numbers 5:17 Then he is to take some holy water in a clay jar and put some of the dust from the tabernacle floor into the water.
- Numbers 5:22 May this water that brings a curse enter your stomach and cause your belly to swell and your thigh to shrivel.’ Then the woman is to say, ‘Amen, Amen.’
- Numbers 5:24 He is to have the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and it will enter her and may cause her bitter suffering.
- Deuteronomy 29:18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit,
- 1 Samuel 15:32 Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.” Agag came to him cheerfully, for he thought, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”
- Proverbs 5:4 in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.
- Ecclesiastes 7:26 And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.
- Isaiah 38:17 Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.