Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 871 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Love Potion: Numbers 5 - Wisdom Wednesday


Thank you for joining us for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. Today is Day 871 of our trek, and it is Wisdom Wednesday. The past several months on Wednesday we have been focusing on interpreting current events through a Biblical worldview.

To establish a Biblical Worldview, it is important that you also have a proper understanding of God’s word. Especially in our western cultures, we do not fully understand the Scriptures from the mindset and culture of the authors. In order to help us all have a better understanding of God’s word, we are investing the next several months on Wednesday reviewing a series of essays from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars Dr. Micheal S. Heiser which he has compiled into a book titled I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Since the beginning of human history, people have been searching for a love potion. There is little verifiable proof that there are any secret potions. There is an odd potion found in the Old Testament, though, that seems a bit strange. In today’s essay, we want to look at Numbers 5 where God gave Moses the recipe for what we will call…
Love Potion: Numbers 5


When’s the last time you heard a sermon on Numbers 5:11-31?

One of the things that Dr. Heiser enjoys telling people in conversations about Bible study is that “If it's weird, it's probably important.” This passage certainly qualifies in both respects. The strangeness of the passage is easily detectable, but only careful Bible study makes its importance apparent.

Numbers 5:11-31 describes a water ritual to determine the guilt or innocence of a woman suspected of adultery. Let me read this passage so you will have a bit of understanding on this strange ritual. This section of Scripture is called…
· Protecting Marital Faithfulness
And the Lord said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel.”

Suppose a man’s wife goes astray, and she is unfaithful to her husband and has sex with another man, but neither her husband nor anyone else knows about it. She has defiled herself, even though there was no witness and she was not caught in the act.  If her husband becomes jealous and is suspicious of his wife and needs to know whether or not she has defiled herself, the husband must bring his wife to the priest. He must also bring an offering of two quarts of barley flour to be presented on her behalf. Do not mix it with olive oil or frankincense, for it is a jealousy offering—an offering to prove whether or not she is guilty.

 The priest will then present her to stand trial before the Lord.  He must take some holy water in a clay jar and pour into it dust he has taken from the Tabernacle floor.  When the priest has presented the woman before the Lord, he must unbind her hair and place in her hands the offering of proof—the jealousy offering to determine whether her husband’s suspicions are justified. The priest will stand before her, holding the jar of bitter water that brings a curse to those who are guilty. The priest will then put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sex with you, and you have not gone astray and defiled yourself while under your husband’s authority, may you be immune from the effects of this bitter water that brings on the curse. But if you have gone astray by being unfaithful to your husband, and have defiled yourself by having sex with another man.” 

At this point, the priest must put the woman under oath by saying, “May the people know that the Lord’s curse is upon you when he...