ABSTRACT
The trial of the suspected adulteress in Num. v 11–31 is highly unusual within the corpus of Israelite Law. Like the case of the decapitated heifer (Deut. xxi 1–9), it is one of the few instances in which we have a detailed description of a ritual to be performed in answer to a crisis in the legal system: in the case of the decapitated heifer, the problem of an unsolved murder; in that of the Sotah, the issue of a suspected adulteress. The two crimes involved here—murder and adultery—are crucially dangerous to the fabric of Israelite society and are therefore punishable by death. In both circumstances—the discovery of a murdered body and the suspicions of a husband—it is impossible to “solve” the case by normal legal means, for in one case (the heifer) there is knowledge of a crime (murder) but no suspect, and in the other (the Sotah) there is a suspect (the wife) but no knowledge whether a crime has been committed. Since the issues of murder and adultery are too serious to be allowed to pass unpunished, special quasi-legal procedures or rituals are prescribed to resolve the situation by religious means. In the case of the decapitated heifer, the goal of the ritual is to forestall bloodguilt upon the people; in the case of the Sotah, to punish adultery. In both instances, the ritual procedures are described in detail. The passage about the Sotah in Num. v 11–31 is found in a group of Priestly rituals. It is essentially a descriptive ritual instruction whose concern is to prescribe the circumstances of the trial and to describe the acts to be performed in the ritual and the words of the curse with which the woman is to be adjured.
