Commentaria in Numeros
Verse 8. BUT IF THERE BE NO ONE TO RECEIVE IT (in Hebrew, if there be no redeemer, that is a kinsman or blood-relation to receive it: for to the kinsman of the deceased belonged the redemption and also the receiving of the thing), THEY SHALL GIVE IT TO THE LORD, AND IT SHALL BE THE PRIEST’S.—For the priest is the vicar and as it were the heir of God.
BESIDES THE RAM (besides the ram) THAT IS OFFERED FOR EXPIATION—as satisfaction for sin. Hence the Hebrews say: When the ram is led to death, the sinner ought to think and reckon as if he himself were led to death for his sins and confess: “O Lord! I am guilty of death, I have deserved to be stoned, burned, or strangled for this sin. But because thou wilt not the death of the sinner, accept for me this ram, which I sacrifice to thee.”
Verse 9. ALL THE FIRSTFRUITS ALSO, WHICH THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL OFFER, BELONG TO THE PRIEST—that is, to the priests: for the firstfruits were divided among all the priests; it was otherwise with the sacrifices: for these fell to the sacrificer, as was said on Leviticus 6:26 and chapter 7, verse 8.
Verse 10. WHATSOEVER IS OFFERED IN THE SANCTUARY BY EVERY ONE, AND IS DELIVERED INTO THE HANDS OF THE PRIEST, SHALL BE HIS.—In Hebrew, “every man’s holy things, that is, things offered, and whatsoever a man shall give to the priest, shall be his.” For if anyone had cast anything into the treasury, or had given it into the hands of the priest for the uses of the temple or tabernacle, it went to the temple or tabernacle; but if he gave it to the priest for his own uses, it went to him (1).
Tropologically Rabanus: The firstfruits, he says, of good will, of words and of works, and whatever in the sanctuary, that is in the Church, true Israelites, that is children of the Church, offer to the Lord, is the priest’s, that is, is Christ the Lord’s; because it pertains to his grace, and is to be ascribed to his merits, intercession and gift.
Verse 12. THE MAN WHOSE WIFE HAS GONE ASTRAY.—In Hebrew, “has turned aside,” namely to another man by adultery.
Verse 13. BECAUSE SHE WAS NOT FOUND IN THE VERY ACT—in adultery (2).
STIRRED UP THE HUSBAND.—Thus prudence, gentleness and mercy itself are called the spirit of prudence, gentleness and mercy.
Note: A wife burdened either with the guilt or with the suspicion of adultery is here commanded by God to purge and prove herself by the waters of jealousy. By a miracle, therefore, as it were established and continual in the law, the crime of adultery was formerly tested among the Jews; and that to this end, lest jealous husbands, if they could not prove the deed they suspected, should kill their wives. The same … for the same reason, since they were stiff-necked men, a bill of divorce was permitted. In like manner among Christians women suspected of adultery formerly purged themselves by touching red-hot iron, and if they were not burned by it, as happened to St. Cunegunda: which trial, since it was not instituted by God, and was therefore a tempting of God, was rightly condemned by the Canons.
Learn here that among the tribulations of the flesh which married persons feel, jealousy is not the least. Among the Persians, not only he who had addressed or touched the king’s concubine, but even he who on a journey had ridden by too close, was punished with beheading, says Plutarch in Artaxerxes.
Catullus is inflamed against his rival Gellius, as the thief of his girl. He also bears it ill that Gellius was preferred to him for his beauty, where he says:
Gellius is handsome; why not? Lesbia would prefer him to you, Catullus, with all your family.
Circe the sorceress, bearing it ill that the nymph Scylla was loved by Glaucus, infected with poison the spring in which she bathed, by the power of which Scylla was changed into a sea monster, as the Poets aptly feign.
Gaius Sulpicius divorced his wife because she had gone out of the house with her head uncovered: “The law,” he said, “appoints to you my eyes alone, to which you may approve your beauty: for these be comely, not pleasing the eyes of others.”
Antisthenes, to a young man asking what sort of wife he should marry: “If you marry a beautiful one,” he said, “you will have one common to all; if an ugly one, you will have a punishment.” In the Greek there is a play between “common” and “penalty.” He advised, therefore, taking a wife of middle and settled beauty, who would neither move her husband to disgust nor draw the eyes of adulterers upon her.
Democritus, being tall, was asked why he had married so small a wife: “In choosing an evil,” he said, “I chose the least.” Blessed Thomas More answered the same.
Pittacus would not marry: “Because if I marry a beautiful woman,” he said, “I shall have jealousy, if not for my own then certainly for the sake of others who court her; if an ugly one, I shall have disgust.”
Socrates used to say “that he had gained three evils: Grammar, poverty and a pernicious wife; two of which he had already escaped, but the third he could not escape.”
Plato, being asked “when a wife should be taken? For a young man, not yet,” he said; “for an old man, never.” More neatly in the Greek, hinting that one must abstain altogether from marriage.
Protagoras, asked why he had given his daughter in marriage to his enemy: “Because,” he said, “I could give him nothing worse.”
Philoxenus, asked why Sophocles introduced good women, but he himself bad ones: “Because,” he said, “Sophocles says what women ought to be; I, what they are.” Hence Alfonso king of Aragon used to say that “marriage would be without quarrels and tranquil, if the husband were deaf, and the wife blind”—implying that women are liable to jealousies, and from this spring brawls and complaints; again that the chatter of wives is most irksome to husbands, of which he would be rid if he were deaf; and she would not be vexed by suspicion of adultery if she lacked eyes, or fled the eyes of others.
Verse 15. HE SHALL OFFER AN OBLATION FOR HER, THE TENTH PART OF A MEASURE OF BARLEY MEAL.—The measure (satum), in Hebrew epha, in the Septuagint ephi, was a measure for dry things containing three bushels: for it was the tenth part of a cor; and a cor contained 30 bushels. Hence the Chaldee for one satum renders three sata, that is three bushels, or three smaller vessels.
HE SHALL NOT POUR OIL UPON IT (the oblation of jealousy) (because oil is the symbol of mercy, not of cruel jealousy), NOR PUT FRANKINCENSE THEREON—because frankincense is the symbol of devotion and good repute, not of the infamy to be inflicted by this sacrifice on the adulteress. Add that all here looks to lowliness: hence earth also is put into the water to be drunk, to signify the lowliness into which the adulteress has cast herself. So Theodoret, Question 10, and Cyril, book 14 On
Verse 17. AND HE SHALL TAKE HOLY WATER—that is, water appointed for holy uses in the tabernacle (2); the same, however, in verses 18 and 19 is called most bitter water, both because it was as it were laden and heavy with the priest’s curses, and because when drunk by the adulteress it affected her with great bitterness.
AND SHALL CAST A LITTLE EARTH OF THE PAVEMENT OF THE TABERNACLE INTO IT—to signify that the adulteress is vile like the dust that is trodden under foot. Hence Ecclesiasticus 9: “A woman that is a fornicatress shall be trodden on as dung in the way.” This earth is taken from the court of the tabernacle, because when the priest made this trial he was in the court of the tabernacle. So Abulensis.
Verse 18. HE SHALL UNCOVER HER HEAD.—The woman accused or suspected of adultery is here commanded to be set before the Lord with bare head, to signify that all things are naked and open to God; that neither adultery, nor any of the things done secretly and in hiding, is hid from God. So Theodoret, Question 10, and Procopius. And that for this end, that the woman by this rite, seeing herself set before the Lord, might seriously tremble, repent and confess her guilt (if she be guilty); lest by denying the crime she double it by the execratory perjury she is presently to undergo (as is commanded in verse 22), and immediately incur the vengeance and execration of God.