Numbers 5:18

Summary

Numbers 5:18 describes a ritual sequence: the priest positions the accused woman before Yehovah (YHWH, H3068G), unbinds her hair, and places in her hands the grain offering associated with the suspicion of adultery. The verse closes by identifying the liquid the priest holds as "the bitter waters that curse."

Key words

• he'emid ("he will make stand", H5975G) — hiphil causative form: the priest does not merely stand but actively causes the woman to stand, marking him as the agent of the ritual action.
• para ("he will let loose", H6544B) — qal verb referring to the unbinding/loosening of the hair; the grammar names an action of release rather than the state of being "uncovered."
• minchat hazikkaron ("grain offering of remembrance", H4503G + H2146) — construct chain: "offering" is grammatically bound to "remembrance," meaning the offering itself is defined by this function, not merely associated with it.
• qena'ot ("jealousies", H7068) — plural noun modifying "offering" in construct (v.26), giving the offering a second construct-defined identity, "offering of jealousies."
• ham'ararim ("the ones cursing", H0779) — piel participle, masculine plural, agreeing with hammarim ("bitter", H4751): grammatically the participle presents the water's action as ongoing/characteristic ("the water that habitually curses"), not a completed one-time curse.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of sequential perfect verbs (he'emid, para, natan) that narrate consecutive priestly actions: causing to stand, unbinding, and placing. Each verb has the priest as grammatical subject, so the woman remains the object throughout — she is stood, her hair is loosed, and objects are placed upon her hands, but she performs no verb herself.

The double construct phrase in verse 25-26 — minchat hazikkaron / minchat qena'ot — assigns the same offering two functions through grammatical apposition: it commemorates ("remembrance") and it responds to suspicion ("jealousies"). The final clause shifts from perfect verbs to an imperfect (yihyu, "they will be", H1961), describing an ongoing state — the waters remaining in the priest's hand — rather than a single completed act, and mei hammarim ham'ararim uses a plural noun ("waters") modified by a plural adjective and plural participle, both agreeing in gender and number, to describe the water's persistent bitter and cursing property.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders para ("let loose") as ἀποκαλύψει ("he will uncover"), and the Vulgate similarly has discooperiet caput ("he will uncover the head") — both describing exposure rather than the unbinding action named by the Hebrew verb. The Hebrew's plural mei hammarim ("bitter waters") appears in the LXX as a singular τὸ ὕδωρ τοῦ ἐλεγμοῦ ("the water of conviction/reproof"), introducing the notion of "reproof" not present in the Hebrew wording, which speaks only of bitterness and cursing. The Vulgate's ipse autem tenebit ("he himself will hold") renders the Hebrew's stative yihyu ("they will be [in the priest's hand]") as an active verb of holding.