THE JEALOUSY OFFERING

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,

And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner;

And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:

Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.

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:

And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse [Num. 5:11–15, 18–19].

The verses following tell us that the woman was to drink the bitter water and if it caused her belly to swell and her thigh to rot, she was to be a curse among her people. If she was not defiled, but was clean, then she should be free. This test would have a tremendous psychological effect upon a person, especially if she were guilty.
Why isn’t the man subjected to the same test? The Bible does not teach a double standard. In this case, the husband was suspicious of the wife. Could a husband be guilty? Of course. We saw in Leviticus, and will see again in Deuteronomy, that if a man or woman were taken in adultery, both of them were to be stoned to death. There is no double standard in the Bible. Then why is only the woman to be tested? Because this is a picture of Christ and the church. There can be no suspicion of Christ, but there is suspicion of the church, I can assure you. I know the church rather well, and, believe me, it is under suspicion!
But this is a jealousy offering. Can God be jealous? Yes, He says that He is a jealous God. Many times He says, “I the LORD thy God am a jealous God.” It is not the low human kind of jealousy like the jealousy of a person who is goaded by an Iago, but the jealousy of love.
When I hear a wife say, “My husband is not jealous of me,” I want to say to her, “Lady, don’t mention it. If your husband is not jealous of you, it is because he doesn’t love you. So I don’t think I would mention it, if I were you.” If a man really loves a woman, he is jealous of her, and the same thing would be true of a woman who loves a man. This is the way God is jealous. He loves us, and He wants our love in return. He is jealous of us! He doesn’t want us to give our time and our affection to the things of this world.
Now, in this test of jealousy, if the wife was shown to be innocent, she was exonerated. Actually, this law protected her from a jealous husband. This worked in her behalf in a very wonderful way.
Certainly this reveals again that the Word of God is very clear on this matter of fidelity to the marriage vow. Today we are seeing a great letdown of that, and it is becoming the accepted thing that the marriage vow is not to be taken seriously. God will hold you to it—I can assure you of that. A great many of the problems of this world today begin in the home. They are being made by those who are treating lightly the marriage vow. God cannot, nor will He bless a nation where this situation prevails.




McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Law (Numbers) (electronic ed., Vol. 8, pp. 39–41). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.