Keeping in theme with the theme of the week of the ‘head’ is this week’s Torah portionclick here which is Numbers 5:11-31 speaking of the law of the jealous husband and the bitter waters that the woman accused must drink. Amazingly, the word for bitter comes from the root מר ‘mar’ which means ‘head waters.’
Num 5:11 And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
Num 5:12 Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, When any man’s wife goes astray, and has committed a trespass against him,
Num 5:13 and a man lies with her with semen, and it has been hidden from her husband’s eyes, and is kept hidden, and she is defiled, and there is no other witness against her, and she has not been caught;
Num 5:14 and a spirit of jealousy has passed over him, and he has become jealous of his wife, and she has been defiled. Or, a spirit of jealousy has passed over him, and he has become jealous of his wife, and she has not become defiled:
Num 5:15 then the man shall bring his wife in to the priest, and he shall bring in her offering for her, a tenth of an ephah of barley meal. He shall not pour oil on it, nor shall he put frankincense on it, for it is a food offering of jealousy, a food offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
Num 5:16 And the priest shall bring her near, and shall cause her to stand before Jehovah.
Num 5:17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel. And the priest shall take of the dust which is on the tabernacle floor, and shall put it into the water.
Num 5:18 And the priest shall cause the woman to stand before YHWH, and shall uncover the woman’s head, and shall give into her hand the food offering of memorial; it is a food offering of jealousy; and in the priest’s hand shall be the bitter waters which cause the curse.
Num 5:19 And the priest shall cause her to swear and shall say to the woman, If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to impurity under your husband, be free from these bitter waters which cause the curse.
Num 5:20 And you, if you have turned aside under your husband, and if you have been defiled, and any man besides your husband has given his semen to you,
Num 5:21 then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say to the woman: YHWH shall make you a curse and an oath among your people, when YHWH makes your thigh to fall away, and your belly to swell.
Num 5:22 And these waters which cause the curse shall go into your bowels to cause the belly to swell, and the thigh to fall. And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.
Num 5:23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and shall blot them with the bitter waters.
Num 5:24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter waters which cause the curse. And the waters which cause the curse shall enter into her for bitter things.
Num 5:25 And the priest shall take the food offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the food offering before YHWH, and shall bring it near to the altar.
Num 5:26 And the priest shall take a handful of the food offering, its memorial, and shall burn it as incense on the altar. And afterward he shall cause the woman to drink the water.
Num 5:27 And when he shall cause her to drink the water, then it shall be, if she has been defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, the waters which cause the curse shall go into her for bitter things; and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse in the midst of her people.
Num 5:28 And if the woman has not been defiled, and is pure, then she shall be clean and shall conceive seed.
Num 5:29 This is the law of jealousies when a wife turns aside under her husband, and has been defiled;
Num 5:30 or when a spirit of jealousy passes over a man, and he has become jealous of his wife, then he shall cause the woman to stand before YHWH, and the priest shall do to her all this law;
Num 5:31 and the man shall be clean from sin, and the woman shall bear her iniquity.
YHWH is a ‘jealous husband.’
Isa 54:5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
Exo 20:2 I am YHWH your God, who has brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
Exo 20:3 You shall not have any other gods before Me.
Exo 20:4 You shall not make a graven image for yourself, or any likeness in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth;
Exo 20:5 you shall not bow to them, and you shall not serve them; for I am YHWH your God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers on sons, on the third and on the fourth generation, to those that hate Me;
Exo 20:6 and doing kindness to thousands, to those loving Me, and to those keeping My commandments.
Exo 34:14 For you shall not bow to another god, for YHWH whose name is Jealous, He is a jealous God;
Israel went a-whoring with other gods and made the Most High jealous.
Deu 29:18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
Deu 32:12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
Deu 32:15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
Deu 32:16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
Deu 32:17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
Deu 32:21 They made Me jealous with a not-a-god; they made Me angry by their vanities; and I shall make them jealous by a not-a-people; by a foolish nation I shall make them angry.
Deu 32:31 For their rock {the gods of the heathen} is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
Deu 32:32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
Deu 32:33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
Jer 23:13 And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.
Jer 23:14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
Jer 23:15 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.
Jer 23:16 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.
Jer 9:13 And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;
Jer 9:14 But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:
Jer 9:15 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
Jer 9:16 I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.
To be reconciled back to the Father, from whom mankind has gone a-whoring, Messiah Jesus took upon Himself the curse of the bitter waters.
Num 5:23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and shall blot them with the bitter waters.
Col 2:13 And you, being dead in the deviations and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all the deviations,
Col 2:14 blotting out the handwriting in the ordinances against us, which was contrary to us, even He has taken it out of the midst, nailing it to the cross;
Col 2:15 having stripped the rulers and the authorities, He made a show of them in public, triumphing over them in it.
This book on which the curses are written was known as the שטר חוב ‘shetar chov’ the writing of the debt/bill of debt. The debt book of sins. This book is alluded to in Matthew 6:12; Isaiah 65:6; Revelation 20:12 and Jeremiah 17:1. It is also referred to in the 1st century Apocryphal writings.
Enoch 98:6-7
I have sworn unto you, ye sinners, by the Holy Great One, that all your evil deeds are revealed in the heavens, and that none of your deeds of oppression are covered and hidden.
And do not think in your spirit nor say in your heart that ye do not know and that ye do not see that every sin is every day recorded in heaven in the presence of the Most High. From henceforth ye know that all your oppression wherewith ye oppress is written down every day till the day of your judgement.
Jubilees Chapter 5
13 righteous each in his kind alway. And the judgment of all is ordained and written on the heavenly tablets in righteousness -even (the judgment of) all who depart from the path which is ordained for them to walk in; and if they walk not therein, judgment is written down for every creature and
14 for every kind. And there is nothing in heaven or on earth, or in light or in darkness, or in Sheol or in the depth, or in the place of darkness (which is not judged); and all their judgments are
15 ordained and written and engraved.
Jubilees Chapter 39
6. But he did not surrender his soul, and he remembered the Lord and the words which Jacob, his father, used to read from amongst the words of Abraham, 2 that no man should commit fornication with a woman who hath a husband; that for him the punishment of death hath been ordained in the heavens before the Most High God, and the sin will be recorded against him in the eternal books continually before the Lord.
2 Baruch 24:1 For behold! the days come and the books shall be opened in which are written the sins of all those who have sinned, and again also the treasuries in which the righteousness of all those who have been righteous in creation is gathered.
The interpretation of “Debt Book of sins” is confirmed in the Aramaic reading of Colossians 2:14:
ועטא בפוקדוהי שטר חובין הו דאיתוהי הוא סקובלן ושקלה מן מצעתא וקהעה בזקיפה
James Murdock translation:
Colossians 2:14 and, by his mandates, he blotted out the handwriting of our debts, which [handwriting] existed against us, and took [it] from the midst, and affixed [it] to his cross.
J.W. Etheridge translation
Colossians 2:14 and hath blotted out in his mandates the writing of our debts that was against us, and hath taken it from the midst, and affixed it to his cross;
Holy Bible From The Ancient Eastern Texts: Aramaic Of The Peshitta by George M. Lamsa
“and by his commandments he cancelled the written bond of our sins, which stood against us; and he took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;”
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