NUMBERS 5 WIFE? [moved from BC]

[JESUSLOVER2007]

Does numbers 5 support wife beating? Could the jealous husband BEAT his wife into going before the priest if he thought she cheated on him if she refused?
Why couldn't the jealous wife do the same thing if she though her husband cheated on her?
Does GOD really thinks it's okay for husbands to cheat on their wives? Does HE enjoy punishing the wife for her husband?
Do we still have to keep the law of Numbers 5? If not when when did it stop?
Please help! Please answer these questions?! no:

[jayne]

There is nothing in this passage about beating a wife or abusing her in any way. This passage, if the truth be known, is like other passages in the law which protects wives from domineering and raging husbands.

Let’s go back a bit. When Adam and Eve received punishments from God, Eve received a direct punishment – pain in childbearing – and an indirect punishment – Adam was going to rise over her. Rising over her was a punishment – not a plan of Godly husbandly leadership. This punishment was something separate.

Godly husbands loving, respecting, protecting, revering, and leading by example of their own lives are a blessing to women.

This “rising over you” is a negative thing. It's a punishment. And God didn’t TELL Adam to rise over Eve. He didn’t whisper the suggestion to him. It was just a natural thing that happened as a result of sin. God told Eve that this was going to be a natural occurrence when banished from the Garden and that she was going to fight it all of her days. This conversation about men was between God and Eve only. He was informing her of the result of sin.

And it happened. Men took multiple wives, raped and pillaged, became hard-hearted towards their wives to such a degree that Moses has to allow for divorce just to protect the wives. Jesus said that Himself in the New Testament when the religious leadership asked Him why Moses allowed for divorce.

This passage that you are citing in Numbers 5 is about what a suspicious husband was to do with a wife that he felt was cheating on him. It COMPLETELY took away any “right” that he had in his mind to punish her with no proof. A jealous rage that blinds people – both men and women – against rational behavior can be a bad thing. You’ve seen jealous people, I’m sure. They can sometimes get very irrational.

He had NO right to punish her. That was God’s direction. The husband was to bring her to the priest and the drinking of the bitter water would supernaturally either (a) make her ill and incapable of bearing children and her behavior would be a warning to the whole community or (b) she would be forever seen as innocent because she was innocent.

Deuteronomy 21 protects foreign women from being raped by Israelite soldiers. If the men were destroying a village and saw a woman that he wanted to have sex with, he was not allowed to do so. He was commanded to marry her –AFTER a 30-day cooling off period for him and an opportunity for her to mourn her family and assimilate into the Israelite community. Even after marriage – if the man were so hard-hearted as to put her away in divorce – he was not allowed to sell her like a slave, but he allow her to go her way with dignity because in putting her away like that Deuteronomy says that he is guilty of dishonoring her.

What about cheating men? The law spells out simply that adulterous men and women were to be stoned.

Are we Christians to follow the Levitical Law today for justification's sake and sanctification's sake? No. Why?

• The law was written for the nation of Israel to keep them separate from all other nations and to keep them pure and holy and undefiled. These people HAD to be holy and pure because God was going to bring a holy and pure Sacrificial Lamb from that nation and His name was Jesus.
• Colossians 2 says that the law was just a shadow of good things to come. And that Jesus Christ is the reality and literally the body and the substance of these great things. A shadow only gives a dim view and cannot be the totality of what is real.
• Jesus Christ said that He came to fulfill the law. The law was perfectly kept by Him and was completed in Him.
• The Apostle Paul said that for Christians – if they are going to keep even just ONE of the items of the law that they were going to have to keep the ENTIRETY of it. And that keeping the entirety of the law meant that Christ was of “no effect” and that we are fallen from grace in trying to make the law our master. Galatians 5.

Why read it then?

I love the Old Testament. I love reading the law. I love the spirit of it. The history of WHY Jesus had to die is all laid out for you. The truth of mankind trying to save himself by works being a foolish thing is all laid out for us there. So much of the law points to Jesus. Leviticus 14 being one them. All of God’s Word is profitable the New Testament says.

I get something more out of the Old Testament every time I read it.

[jayne]

**Here is a post from Nyoka. She was having trouble getting it here. I'm having trouble moving it, so I'm copying and pasting it for her.

I believe the thing we have to remember is that in the days of the old testament woman were seen as property of their husband. Also in those days a womans testimony was not seen as reliable so a husband could accuse his wife of adultery out of pure jealousy and/or spite with the wife having no recourse to prove her innocence. God is providing a wife, who has done no wrong, with a way to show her husband, the priests and the people that she is innocent. I honestly don't know how it would prove a wife had committed adultery but maybe it was more a psychological thing and because the wife, who did wrong, expected it to prove she had done wrong then it did but that is just my opinion and it could be wrong - like when someone convinces themselves they are sick when really there is nothing wrong with them. Hope this helps.

[JESUSLOVER2007]

Thank you for the replies. I thought that if the wife REFUSED to go with her jealous husband that he could BEAT her into going? What about a jealous wife who never saw her husband cheat? For example if the jealous wife would see her husband let's say flirting with another woman and then the go into a room alone? What can the wife do then? It wouldn't be unfair if GOD would let the husband get away with it? Why didn't GOD raise the status of women back in the day? HE never even let abused wives divorce their abusive disrespectful husbands for crying out loud?! Whenever i read BIBLE passages about women all i feel from GOD is that HE thinks we are inferior, nasty, and okay to abuse! It makes me feel so bad that i wish i was never born!

[jayne]

Thank you for the replies. I thought that if the wife REFUSED to go with her jealous husband that he could BEAT her into going? What about a jealous wife who never saw her husband cheat? For example if the jealous wife would see her husband let's say flirting with another woman and then the go into a room alone? What can the wife do then? It wouldn't be unfair if GOD would let the husband get away with it? Why didn't GOD raise the status of women back in the day? HE never even let abused wives divorce their abusive disrespectful husbands for crying out loud?! Whenever i read BIBLE passages about women all i feel from GOD is that HE thinks we are inferior, nasty, and okay to abuse! It makes me feel so bad that i wish i was never born!

You won't find anyone on this Christian website that is more of a feminist than me, sister. But trust me on this, God is not a misogynist. And the Law was not what some people call all-inclusive. It didn't have a command for every single scenario that humans could consider. For example, lesbianism is not talked about in the Law. Male homosexuality is. Does that mean that lesbianism was OK back then? No. Not at all.

I believe that this law giving instructions on how the husband is to handle a wife that he suspects is cheating to to protect the woman from an abusive man. Again, there is nowhere that it instructs him to beat her. If a woman suspected her husband of cheating, I seriously doubt that she could have beat the crap out of him without the community knowing about it and she would have been dealt with. He didn't need protection from her. She needed protection from him if his jealousy were violent.

God did elavate the status of women in the law by protecting them here and in the other passage that I cited. He gave women who were raped justice and widows who were homeless and childess safety and provision. God gave strict orders in the law for men not to have sex with their mothers, sisters, aunts, and more. God opened the womb of Leah, who was unloved and actually hated by her husband. This gave her a place in her marriage that he could not undo.

God never lowered the status of women or treated them with disdain. That's what humanity did. And still does to some degree.

I'm delighted to be female. I can remember when I was younger and didn't understand the Bible very well, I had feelings similar to yours. But as I grew spiritually and read the Word with great earnest, I discovered that God didn't create Eve as an afterthought. And God isn't a misogynist.

[JESUSLOVER2007]

What does misogynist mean?

A misogynist is one who despises women and believes them to be inferior to men whether intellectually, morally, spiritually, physically, or in any other way. It can be a man who has misogynistic attitudes and it can also be women. Some of the worse cases of misogyny that I have ever encountered are from women.

God however, cannot be blamed for the evils that humanity commits - including misogyny.

So would GOD let an abused wife divorce and abusive husband back then or now??? 0.0 I know that's one of the things NOT mentioned in the BIBLE. Please let me know.

Is divorce an option for abused spouse? Of course it is. Does the Bible command it or teach it. No. The Bible clearly teaches husbands to treat their wives as their own body, as Christ treated the church, with understanding, love, and a protective nature. The Bible also teaches against child abuse. It says for father (and mothers) not to provoke their children to wrath. The Bible's point of view of marriage is what TO do and the right path and striving for reconciliation.

That does not mean that divorce is not an option for a woman whose very life or whose children's very lives are threatened by their husband/father. It just mean that the Bible instills in us to try and get help for the marriage, for the abuser, and the abused first. Lots of women and children have moved out and their husbands/fathers have received help and changed and after a time they moved back in. Some have had no other option but to legal divorce a man who will not change.

The Bible does not require any woman or man or child to be a doormat to any type of abuse.

Also what punishment did a rapist get for raping a single woman?

If a woman did get raped could she still marry another man? Thanks lots.

Deuteronomy 22:25-27 speaks about rape. If a man finds a woman and "forces her" and "she cries out" but "no one can help/hear her", then that man is to be killed. The Bible says that taking her this way was just like a man murdering someone. And she is to be considered totally innocent - because she didn't do anything wrong.

The next part, verses 28-29 speak of when a man has consensual sex with a woman who is not his wife and she is not married and "he lies with her" and "THEY are discovered". He has to pay a bride price to her father and they must marry. The Bible says he must do this because he dishonored her. That portion isn't about rape.

[JESUSLOVER2007]

I bet the wife would want to go prove her innocense. It also hurts how the LORD told her she is UNDER HER HUSBANDS AUTHORITY! Sometimes i feel GOD thinks that a man's authority is more important than a woman's personal relationship with HIM?! What if the wife knew she was guilty and refused to go at her husbans request? Then what? I just wish there was something a jealous wife could of done!

[JESUSLOVER2007]

in Numbers 5 did the wife have a say so as to whether she would go with her husband or not? Or would GOD demand a husband to force her to go in another way? Thanks I am so sorry you used to have these same feelings too!

[jayne]

in Numbers 5 did the wife have a say so as to whether she would go with her husband or not? Or would GOD demand a husband to force her to go in another way? Thanks I am so sorry you used to have these same feelings too!

Once again, there is nothing in the passage about force. If I were one of these women and I were innocent, I would be dragging HIM to the priest so that everyone could see that I was innocent. God never demands a husband to force his wife to do anything. God isn't that kind of God.

I am so content in my understanding of how God views me as a woman. I find great comfort in the Bible when I see the things of the world that go on in terms of women. God made provision for women so many times. The world can be cruel to women. Just look at many cultures around the world.

God is not and has never been cruel to women. God loves women like He loves men. I hope you can find comfort in that.

[JESUSLOVER2007]

WOW! I just heard from a nice gentleman that the WIFE coulda done the same thing to her husband is she was suspicious and jealous? Is that TRUE? 0.0 I never heard any BIBLE teacher say that before! Even Dr. Chuch Missler. I am somewhat relieved GOD wouldn't want him to FORCE her. I'm glad the wife had a say so! WHEW! I guess i misunderstand the old testament? Are you a professional BIBLE counselor? You sure have helped me! ^^ I am also relieved that rapists who raped a woman single or betrothed got the death penalty. I thought GOD thought it was okay to rape a single woman!

[jayne]

WOW! I just heard from a nice gentleman that the WIFE coulda done the same thing to her husband is she was suspicious and jealous? Is that TRUE? 0.0 I never heard any BIBLE teacher say that before! Even Dr. Chuch Missler. I am somewhat relieved GOD wouldn't want him to FORCE her. I'm glad the wife had a say so! WHEW! I guess i misunderstand the old testament? Are you a professional BIBLE counselor? You sure have helped me! ^^ I am also relieved that rapists who raped a woman single or betrothed got the death penalty. I thought GOD thought it was okay to rape a single woman!

As I said, the law was not all-inclusive. It did not write out specific instructions for every single human action. As I said earlier - the law spelled out punishments for male homosexuality, but not female. And that did mean that females could engage in homosexual behavior? No, indeed.

Could a woman have done the same thing by taking her husband to the priest? It would be strange because the punishment - inability to conceive - could not have been the same.

I am not a professional counselor. None of us here are. But I have read and studied the Bible for a very long time. I've been a Christian for 40 years and have studied the Bible - purposefully - for about 25 years.

[JESUSLOVER2007]

Sorry but i'm confused? She couldn't?

[jayne]

I'm not saying that she could not go to someone and tell that she felt her husband were cheating. Certainly she could. She could tell anyone that she wanted to. But to follow this particular process would mean that the husand suspected of cheating would have to drink the bitter drink and if guilty he would lose his ability to have a baby. Well, men don't have babies. So this particular process doesn't apply to husbands.

[jayne]

As this thread is not a request for counseling, but more of a question about Bible verses, I am moving this to the Bible chat forum.

[MaryFreeman]

Thank you for the replies. I thought that if the wife REFUSED to go with her jealous husband that he could BEAT her into going? What about a jealous wife who never saw her husband cheat? For example if the jealous wife would see her husband let's say flirting with another woman and then the go into a room alone? What can the wife do then? It wouldn't be unfair if GOD would let the husband get away with it? Why didn't GOD raise the status of women back in the day? HE never even let abused wives divorce their abusive disrespectful husbands for crying out loud?! Whenever i read BIBLE passages about women all i feel from GOD is that HE thinks we are inferior, nasty, and okay to abuse! It makes me feel so bad that i wish i was never born!

Would you mind sending me a PM?