Numbers 5:21

Summary

The priest places the woman under the "curse-oath" formula, pronouncing that Yehovah will make her a public example of curse and oath among her people, specifically by causing her thigh to fall and her belly to swell — the physical sign accompanying the imprecation begun in the surrounding verses.

Key words

• hishBia ("he will make swear", H7650) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect: the priest does not merely swear himself but causes the woman to swear, continuing the narrative sequence from the prior verse.
• shvu'At ha'aLah ("oath of the curse", H7621 + H0423) — construct chain: "oath" governs "curse," binding the two nouns into a single legal-ritual formula rather than two separate acts.
• yiTen ("may he give/make", H5414I) — qal imperfect, here functioning with jussive/future force ("may Yehovah make you...") within the priest's spoken formula.
• nofelet ("falling", H5307G) — qal participle, feminine singular, describing the thigh as an ongoing or resultant state ("falling/fallen") rather than a completed single action.
• tzaVah ("swollen", H6639) — adjective, feminine singular, describing the belly's resulting condition, parallel in form to nofelet though grammatically an adjective, not a participle.

What the text says

The verse opens with two sequential perfects, hishBia ("he will make swear") and 'aMar ("he will say"), both continuing narrative action begun earlier: the priest first administers the oath, then speaks its content. The formula itself pairs two nouns from the same root complex, 'aLah ("curse") and shvu'Ah ("oath"), first in construct (shvu'At ha'aLah, "oath of the curse") and later as parallel objects (le'aLah ulishvu'Ah, "into a curse and into an oath"), producing a doubled legal expression rather than a single term for the ritual.

The clause introduced by beTet ("when he gives/makes," infinitive construct with preposition be) is temporal, subordinating the physical effects — the thigh's "falling" and the belly's "swelling" — to the moment Yehovah acts. Grammatically, nofelet is a participle (denoting an unfolding or resultant state), while tzaVah is an adjective (denoting a fixed condition), so the Hebrew grammar treats the two bodily effects with slightly different aspectual shading even though both describe the same imprecation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shvu'At ha'aLah ("oath of the curse") as "τοῖς λόγοις τῆς ἀρᾶς" ("the words of the curse"), shifting from "oath" to "words." Where the Hebrew has the participle nofelet ("falling"), the LXX uses the perfect participle "διαπεπτωκότα" ("having fallen/collapsed"), and the Vulgate departs further with "putrescere" ("to rot"), introducing a decay image not present in the Hebrew root H5307 ("to fall"). The Vulgate also opens with "his maledictionibus subjacebis" ("you shall be subject to these curses"), an interpretive addition not corresponding word-for-word to the Hebrew's sequential-perfect narrative structure, and renders betokh 'amekh ("in the midst of your people") as "exemplumque cunctorum in populo suo" ("an example to all in his people"), expanding the phrase beyond the Hebrew's simple locative construct.