What Does Numbers 5:19 Mean in the King James?
And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “free” means being cleared, so the verse speaks of acquittal inside the very ritual that threatens a curse.
THE MEANING
Here, the priest makes the woman’s release conditional: if no man has lain with her and she has not turned aside into uncleanness, she is cleared from the bitter water that carries the curse. The verse holds accusation, exposure, and possible acquittal together; her body is placed under a ritual test whose threat remains present.
THE ROOT
הִנָּקִי
hinnāqî
GROWS FROM
נקה
Be clear, be clean, or be acquitted.
The Hebrew behind “free” is hinnāqî, from נקה (n-q-h): to be clear or acquitted. This root links innocence with being cleared, making freedom here a verdict delivered inside a dangerous ordeal.
ALSO GROWS
nāqî: Innocent, clear.
נָקִי
The same root can describe the state of being without guilt, illuminating the condition for release in this verse.
niqqāh: Clear or acquit.
נִקָּה
This form shows the root’s judicial sense: a person can be cleared of a charge.
THE PATTERN
An oath brings a disputed claim into a formal proceeding where the claim is tested before God.
Then shall an oath of the LORD be between them both, that he hath not put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods; and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good.If any man trespass against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house:For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.THE THREAD
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.“Clear” in this verse comes from the same Hebrew root, נקה (n-q-h), as “free” in Numbers 5:19. The shared word links her conditional release to a wider language of clearing guilt, while Exodus also names the limit: the guilty are not cleared.
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