וישלחו מן המחנה , “they are to expel from the camp, etc.” After the Torah had organized the encampment of the Israelites around the Tabernacle, the instructions are now issued to remove people afflicted with varying degrees of ritual impurity from the camp in order to prevent the entire camp from becoming infected with ritual impurity which would drive away the Shechinah which rested above the encampment. Not only the ritually impure but also the mixed multitude that had joined the Jewish people at the Exodus were separated from the camp seeing that the latter did not belong to any of the twelve tribes. Seeing that the Torah had already touched on specific rules applicable to converts such as the mixed multitude who could not be part of the regular encampment due to their legal status, it also appends here the laws pertaining to proselytes who died without leaving behind legal heirs, and the kind of guilt offering someone had to bring if he had wronged a convert by stealing from him and the convert had died before restitution had been made. (Verses 6-8)

כל צרוע וכל זב וכל טמא לנפש, “anyone who is afflicted with the skin disease known as tzoraat, or experiences a seminal emission defined as zav, or who is impure due to some kind of direct or indirect contact with the body of a deceased human being.” The three categories of ritual impurity listed here are capable to contaminating others, whereas a person experiencing a normal seminal emission while personally ritually impure does not confer his impurity on others. Hence he does not need to leave any of the tree camps constituting the encampment of the Israelites in the desert.

איש או אשה, “man or woman, etc.” Nachmanides writes that the reason why the Torah mentions a woman here, although it is not usual for women to rob proselytes, is that we might have thought that if a woman had been guilty of this crime she would not have to do more than make restitution without adding the fifth mentioned here as a penalty; to make sure we do not err in this matter the Torah made sure that we understand that man and woman are subject to the same rules. [Nachmanides presumably is bothered that the Torah did not simply write אדם that would have included man and woman. Ed.]

למעול מעל, “by committing treachery.” The Torah means that the guilty party not only stole, but swore an oath in the name of Hashem denying that he had done so. Seeing that the basic sin had already been discussed (Leviticus 5,15) and the only thing different here is the status of the victim, the Torah was very brief here. It goes on to mention:

וכל תרומה לכל קדשי בני ישראל, “and every portion from any of the holies that the Children of Israel bring, etc.” The point of the verse is to inform us that the portions spoken of by the Torah are henceforth the private property of the priest who had received them, and anyone stealing it from them is treated as having robbed the priest. Alternately, the meaning of our verse is that at this point the Torah completes previous legislation about the rights and duties of the priests, seeing it had not yet discussed certain aspects except obliquely with words such as מלאתך, and דמעך (Exodus 22,28). Not only that, but mention of the tithes at the end of the Book of Leviticus 27,30 does not include the תרומה to be given to the priests at all. Therefore the Torah complements the legislation at this stage by speaking both about תרומה and other holy gifts of even higher degrees of sanctity, i.e. קדשי בני ישראל. Both revert to the priests to whom they have been allocated, and become their personal property. The מנחת סוטה, meal offering to be presented by the woman accused of but not proven guilty of marital infidelity, is not mentioned in Leviticus at all, seeing that it is a meal offering resulting from a husband’s jealousy, not a free will offering like other meal offerings. This offering does not contribute to the atonement of that woman at all. (Verse 15-17) At this point the legislation governing meal-offerings is completed. Similarly, the Torah uses this opportunity to fill us in about the offerings a Nazir has to bring at the end of the term he vowed to abstain from ritual impurity and any grape-related products. After the Tabernacle had been erected and laws about maintaining ritual purity had been introduced, the Nazir legislation also became something of an actual rather than something theoretical. During the term of abstinence the Nazirites used to throng around the entrance of the Tabernacle, hoping to be useful in its service in some manner. Moreover, the Torah thought it appropriate to deal with the subject of the Nazirite at this juncture as a female Nazirite serves as the model for the exact opposite of the Sotah, the wife who by her conduct aroused the suspicion in the mind of her husband that she had indulged in marital infidelity.

וכל תרומה לכל קדשי בני ישראל, “and any portion from all the holies that the Children of Israel bring.” Nachmanides writes that the plain meaning of the verse is as if the Torah had written that seeing that there is no official minimum amount for such a gift set by the Torah [as opposed to the tithes. Ed.], the word כל may be understood as “any.” Such a gift is not one that may be demanded by the Levites or priests, but until it is offered as a totally voluntary offering the priest has no claim on it whatsoever. In the Sifrey our verse is interpreted as speaking of the bikkurim, the respective first fruit of each of his crops the farmer brings to Jerusalem, seeing that offering is on occasion referred to as תרומה. The words יקריבו אותה are also understood as the owner having the choice to which priest he wants to give these gifts.

ואיש את קדשיו לו יהיו, “A man’s holies shall be his.” Nachmanides writes that the proper understanding of these somewhat enigmatic words is that all the holies someone has consecrated that were not obligatory are his to dispose of. The reason that the Torah had to write this was that we might have thought that as soon as something is described as קודש לה', “holy unto Hashem, it might have become the property of the Temple treasury or the priests administering same. Examples of this legislation are the second tithe, which the owners and his family consume in Jerusalem, or produce of a new orchard in the fourth year after it has been planted, known as נטע רבעי, which the owner may also consume in Jerusalem. Even the holies that have been given by the donor to the priest become the priest’s in the sense that anyone stealing them from the priest is not dealt with as if he had stolen from the Temple treasury, but is considered as having stolen the priest’s private property. Thus even other priests are not able to steal fro their colleagues claiming that it is all property of the Temple treasury.

לא יצוק עליו שמן, “he shall not pour oil over it.” This is to prevent this offering from becoming something “enhanced” as luxury. Nachmanides adds that this is in line with the opinion of the commentators who consider this offering in the nature of a penalty, [although the woman’s status has not yet been determined. Ed.] Proof, according to these commentators, is the fact that the kind of cereal, i.e. barley, basically animal fodder, which is stipulated here is to remind us of the low rank in terms of their spiritual level, of the person offering this meal offering. [Note that although the husband tenders this offering, the Torah describes it as “her offering.” Ed.] By not having oil added to make it tasty, and being prepared from inferior type of cereal, the Torah makes the point that it is not too welcome, according to these commentators. Nachmanides, adds however, that in his own opinion, the expression מנחת קנאות, “a meal-offering of jealousies” refers to the beginning of the verse to remind us that the woman at this stage is presumed guilty, and it would not be appropriate for a guilty person such as she to possess the effrontery to approach G’d with a meal offering from her own funds. The husband offers the meal offering as kind of a mute appeal to Hashem to show that he had not falsely accused his wife, and was entitled to have been jealous of her as a result of her behaviour. The reason why this meal-offering consists basically of barley, i.e שעורים is a play on words, the conduct of that woman regardless of whether she actually committed infidelity, being one that is “hair-raising,” in the sense of שערת השם, provoking G’d’s anger. Seeing that the letter ש with the dot on the left side sounds like the letter ס, her conduct sets of a “storm,” סער of outrage in heaven. The author quotes Jeremiah 23,19 וסער מתחולל על ראש רשעים יחול, “a whirling storm shall whirl down upon the heads of the wicked,” to make his point. He also quotes Judges 7,13 where the צליל שעורים, the loaf of barley bread, in the dream of the Midianite soldier foreshadowed the defeat of his people at the hands of the Israelites. [Additional quotes are provided on the subject. Ed.]

וביד הכהן יהיו מי המרים המאררים, “and the bitter waters shall be in the hand of the priest.” Nachmanides writes that numerous commentators describe these waters as bitter, מים מרים, as the Torah supposedly names these water so in light of the ultimate tragic results that are likely to occur after they have been drunk by the Sotah. The Talmud in Sotah 20 however, says that the priest adds something to this water that ensures that it will taste bitter. The purpose is to awaken the woman to her endangering herself by toying with her future by denying her guilt and ignoring the fact that G’d Himself will bring it to light. This would explain the line in verse 22 that describes graphically that the waters in question will have the power of bringing a curse upon those who drink it while guilty. As to the plain meaning of the text, Nachmanides continues, he believes that as soon as the woman in question drinks these waters they will prove to taste sweet to her just as ordinary drinking water. If she was guilty however, once these waters have entered her entrails, they will display the devastating effect described in our paragraph. She may even disgorge these waters, after their having turned bitter. The expression מאררים refers to the effect that these waters have upon the guilty woman drinking them, i.e. they act as a curse.

אם לא שכב איש אותך ואם לא שטית טומאה תחת אישך, “if a man has not lain with you, and you have not strayed in defilement with someone other than your husband, etc.” Nachmanides writes that we are dealing here with what at first glance appear to be two conditions, whereas in reality they are one and the same condition. How so? 1) You did not have sexual relations with someone other than your husband. 2) In a manner that would make you defiled vis a vis your husband. The reason we have to explain the verse in this manner is that if it were not so, the word איש in the first part of the verse would include her husband, so that she could not possibly swear that she had never had sexual relations with her husband. The words:לא שטית טומאה תחת אישך, therefore must mean that by drinking these waters she swears that while married to her husband, i.e. תחת אישך, she had never done anything as a result of which she would have become defiled for her husband. It is possible that the fact that the word איש which lacks the prefix ה describing which man it refers to, is intended to mean that the woman is asked to swear that she had not lain with the man of whom she has been suspected and accused of having lain with. In that event, we would deal with two separate conditions, the first one speaking of a specific sexual misdemeanour with a specific person, whereas the second one broadens the area of her oath to include any other hitherto unsuspected sexual involvement that would make her defiled for her husband. Ibn Ezra explains the first condition as involving rape, sexual relations by her with another man against her will, whereas the second condition would speak of a sexual relationship with another man in which she had been a willing participant.

ואת כי שטית, “but you who have strayed, etc.” According to Nachmanides the words above relate to the words יתן ה' אותך לאלה וגו', “may Hashem render you as a curse, etc.” in verse 21, so that we may understand the sequence as follows: “may you who have strayed and lain with someone other than your husband become a curse, etc.” The reason why the Torah repeated the introductory words והשביע הכן once more in verse 21 is not that the priest adjures the woman a second time, but seeing that so many words had intervened since the words above in verse 10, the reader might have lost track of the proper meaning. Ibn Ezra explains that the first time we encounter the words והשביע הכהן the priest adjures her in the name of Hashem, but not spelling out the nature of the curse, whereas the second time in verse 21 he adjures her on pain of a curse spelling out precisely what would happen to her. This, according to Nachmanides, cannot be right, as an oath in the name of the Tetragram cannot possibly be linked to a conditional word such as אם. This would be tantamount to using the name of the Lord in vain. Our author draws attention to another anomaly in these verses, In verse 19, where the priest allows for the possibility that the woman is in fact not guilty of what she has been accused of, the possibility that she might have defiled herself is mentioned only after the possibility that she is innocent, and the words תחת אישך appear at the end of that phrase, whereas in verse 20 the words תחת אישך, “other than your husband,” appear before the priest spelled out that she had thereby defiled herself. Also, while in verse 19 where the possibility of the woman being innocent of the accusations leveled against her is mentioned first, the priest speaks to her directly, i.e. “you have done, you will be found pure, etc.,” in verse 21, where she is presumed guilty, priest phrases her sin in such a manner that even coitus interruptus would make her liable to the same punishment as if the act had been completed. This is implied in the words ויתן איש בך את שכבתו, “another man has lain with you,” (verse 20). The words יתן ה' are spoken by the priest when he turns his face away from her already, signaling his disgust. This is why the Torah did not add the words אל האשה, i.e. “to the woman directly.”

וכתב את האלות האלה הכהן בספר, “The priest shall inscribe these curses on a scroll, etc.” The Jerusalem Talmud (Sotah chapter 2) explains the reason for these various elements in the procedure. מים, water, represents the origin of life, return to one’s origin. עפר, dust represents man’s ultimate destination. כתב, the scroll, symbolizes that all man’s actions are being recorded in anticipation of his giving an account of himself after his soul has departed from him. Nachmanides writes that it is remarkable that this is the only legislation in the Torah that relies on Divine intervention to establish a truth we were not able to establish on our own. This was a נס קבוע, a predictable miracle available for the rare instances described in our chapter. This legislation, i.e. its application, was predicated on the fact that the vast majority of the Jewish people would be Torah observant, so that the case of a woman being suspected of infidelity was an exception. As soon as the moral standards of the Jewish people deteriorated so that marital infidelity became more frequent, Divine intervention of this nature came to an abrupt halt. While marital infidelity had been a rare exception this very Divine intervention to determine if the accusation was true was liable to act as a deterrent to straying wives. As soon as the mores of the people changed, such an intervention would no longer have been a deterrent, on the contrary G’d’s effort to restore harmony between man and his wife would have been wasted. The prophet Hoseah 4,14 speaks about this when he says: לא אפקוד על בנותיכם כי תזנינה ועל כלותיכם כי תנאפנה כי הם עם זונות יפרדו ועם הקדשות יזבחו, “I will not punish your daughters for fornicating, nor your daughters-in-law for committing adultery; for they (the husbands or fathers) themselves turn aside with whores and sacrifice with the prostitutes.” The meaning of Hoseah’s statement is not that those guilty of such sins will escape retribution seeing that their husbands are not better than they are, but it means that their husbands cannot invoke the legislation discussed in our chapter seeing that they themselves are no better. The waters described in our paragraph are effective only if the jealous husband is himself free from any extra marital indiscretion.