Numbers, Chapter 5, verses 21-22 explains what a husband should do if he suspects his wife of being unfaithful. He should take her to a priest, and then...
5:21 Then the priest will put the woman under the oath of the curse 1 and will say 2 to the her, “The Lord make you an attested curse 3 among your people, 4 if the Lord makes 5 your thigh fall away 6 and your abdomen swell; 7 5:22 and this water that causes the curse will go 8 into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh rot.” 9 Then the woman must say, “Amen, amen.” 10
7 sn Most commentators take the expressions to be euphemisms of miscarriage or stillbirth, meaning that there would be no fruit from an illegitimate union. The idea of the abdomen swelling has been reinterpreted by NEB to mean “fall away.” If this interpretation stands, then the idea is that the woman has become pregnant, and that has aroused the suspicion of the husband for some reason. R. K. Harrison (Numbers [WEC], 111-13) discusses a variety of other explanations for diseases and conditions that might be described by these terms. He translates it with “miscarriage,” but leaves open what the description might actually be. Cf. NRSV “makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge.”
Numbers 5:27 describes what will happen if she has been unfaithful - the womb will "shrivel" or "discharge" in some translations, and verse 28 presents the other alternative - if she has been faithful, she will be able to bear children.
Food for thought.
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