This passage is often misinterpreted as endorsing misogynistic abuse or coercive control over women, ignoring its context as a protective legal mechanism in a patriarchal society that required concrete suspicion before proceeding and safeguarded the accused by relying on divine intervention rather than human presumption; others wrongly view it as superstitious magic or a literal prescription for modern use, overlooking its ceremonial nature limited to the tabernacle priesthood and its obsolescence under the New Covenant, or as evidence of an arbitrary God, when it actually demonstrates impartial justice accessible only to the innocent.
Numbers 5:21
King James Version (1769)
21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
Numbers 5:21 outlines part of the ancient Israelite ritual known as the ordeal of bitter water, where a priest invokes a curse upon a woman accused of adultery by her jealous husband, calling for divine judgment that would cause her thigh to rot and belly to swell if guilty, thereby affirming God's sovereignty in discerning hidden truth, protecting the innocent from unfounded suspicion, and upholding the covenantal purity of marriage within the community.