Numbers 5:23-31: a reflection

23“‘The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall wipe them into the water of bitterness. 24He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter. 25The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the meal offering before the LORD, and bring it to the altar. 26The priest shall take a handful of the meal offering, as its memorial portion, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water. 27When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away; and the woman will be a curse among her people. 28If the woman isn’t defiled, but is clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive offspring. 29“‘This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, being under her husband, goes astray, and is defiled, 30or when the spirit of jealousy comes on a man, and he is jealous of his wife; then he shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute on her all this law. 31The man shall be free from iniquity, and that woman shall bear her iniquity.’”

This is a difficult and troubling passage, an ancient ritual for a husband who suspected his wife of unfaithfulness but had no proof. It reads harshly to us, and honesty requires admitting that. But it helps to see what the ritual did in its own world. In a society where a jealous husband could ruin or even kill an accused wife on mere suspicion, this rite took the matter out of human hands, out of the reach of the husband's rage or the community's assumptions, and placed it before God, who alone knew the truth. The verdict was left to the One who sees what no one else can.

Notice that underlying principle, even amid the strangeness of the ritual: the truth of hidden things belongs to God alone. No one but God could know whether the accusation was true; human beings could only suspect, assume, and accuse. So the matter was given to God, the only one who truly sees the heart and knows what happened in secret. It was, in its harsh way, a refusal to let mere human suspicion be the final word.

There is something worth carrying from that principle. So much of what we deal with in others is hidden from us; we cannot finally know another person's heart, their secret motives, the truth of what happened where we did not see. We are quick to assume, to suspect, to render verdicts we are not equipped to render. This passage, for all its difficulty, points to a God who alone knows the truth of hidden things. Leave the judgment of what you cannot see to him. Do not set yourself up as the knower of hearts; entrust the hidden things to the God who truly sees.

Lord, this is a hard passage, and yet it points to a truth I need: that the hidden things belong to you alone, who sees what no one else can. When I am quick to suspect, assume, and render verdicts about what I cannot truly know, restrain me. Help me leave the judgment of hidden things to you, the only knower of hearts, and not set myself up as the judge of what only you can see.