Forgive me if this is a dumb question. Concerning the bitter water, and how it is used to identify an adultress:
Was there something "natural" about this bitter water that would have made the woman's "bowel swell up" and "thigh fall away" as a reaction to the drinking thereof if she'd been guilty of sexual intercourse with another man?
I would presume not because how would the bitter water distinguish between the woman having intercourse with her husband as opposed to someone else. However, my thinking could be wrong in this regard.
Or, is this just the way God wanted a "jealousy test" performed? If so, at one point would this process have been rendered null and void? At the same time other parts of the law were fulfilled and considered non-binding?
The water, with a little dust put into it, and the scrapings of a written parchment, had no natural tendency at all to do either good or hurt; but if God was thus appealed to in the way of an instituted ordinance, though otherwise the innocent might have continued under suspicion and the guilty undiscovered, yet God would so far own his own institution as that in a little time, by the miraculous operation of Providence, the innocency of the innocent should be cleared, and the sin of the guilty should find them out.
Unless there is something I'm missing I would agree with our dear depared brother Matthew.
It seems like a means which God just chose to use.
__________________
Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics
It seems like a means which God just chose to use.
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