Numbers Chapter 5 verse 23 Holy Bible
And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness:
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And the priest will put these curses in a book, washing out the writing with the bitter water;
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And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and shall blot them out with the bitter water,
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And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:
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And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:
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"The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.
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`And the priest hath written these execrations in a book, and hath blotted `them' out with the bitter waters,
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 23. - In a book. On a roll. Blot them out with the bitter water. Rather, "wash them off into the bitter water," in order to transfer the venom of the curses to the water. Ἐξαλείψει... εἰς τὸ ὔδωρ, Septuagint. The writing on the scroll was to be washed off in the vessel of water. Of course the only actual consequence was that the ink was mixed with the water, but in the imagination of the people, and to the frightened conscience of a guilty woman, the curses were also held in solution in the water of trial. The direction was founded on a world-wide superstition, still prevalent in Africa, and indeed amongst most semi-barbarous peoples. In the 'Romance of Setnan,' translated by Brugsch. Bey, the scene of which is laid in the time of Rameses the Great, a magical formula written on a papyrus leaf is dissolved in water, and drunk with the effect of imparting all its secrets to him that drinks it. So in the present day, by a similar superstition, do sick Mahomedans swallow texts of the Koran; and so in the middle ages the canonized Archbishop Edmund Rich (1240) on his death-bed washed a crucifix in water and drank it, saying, "Ye shall drink water from the wells of salvation."
