What Does Numbers 5:20 Mean in the King James?
But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:
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
Hebrew uses אִישׁ (ish, man or husband) for both “thy husband” and “some man,” making the alleged breach a shift in relation to the same word.
THE MEANING
You hear a conditional accusation: you have turned aside from your husband, become defiled, and another man has lain with you outside that bond. The sentence ties a woman’s sexual status to her husband’s claim and names the alleged breach through bodily impurity.
THE ROOT
שָׂטִית
satit
GROWS FROM
שׂטה
satah
to turn aside or deviate
“gone aside” in this verse is satit. The verb names the alleged act as turning away; שׂוֹטָה (sotah, one who turns aside) is a derived form used for the woman at the center of this case. The root makes deviation the charge’s organizing idea, while the repeated אִישׁ (ish, man or husband) leaves the relationship between the two men visible beneath the English wording.
ALSO GROWS
satah: to turn aside or deviate
שָׂטָה
This is the base verb behind “gone aside,” naming the alleged breach as a change of direction.
sotah: a woman who has turned aside
שׂוֹטָה
This derived form names the person through the same act of turning aside.
נִטְמֵאת
nitme't
GROWS FROM
טמא
to be or become ritually impure
The verse places defilement between the turning aside and the man’s lying with her, so the accusation includes a named bodily condition as well as an alleged act. The root’s related forms show that “defiled” belongs to a wider vocabulary of impurity, not just a description of the sexual encounter.
ALSO GROWS
tamei: unclean or impure
טָמֵא
This adjective describes the condition the verse says the woman has entered.
tum'ah: impurity or uncleanness
טֻמְאָה
This noun makes the condition named by “defiled” part of a broader category.
THE PATTERN
Scripture frames sexual union as a bond with bodily and relational consequence, not as an isolated act.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.THE THREAD
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,“Go aside” in Numbers 5:12 uses the same root שׂטה (satah, turn aside) as “gone aside” here. The repeated root names the alleged departure at the start of the charge and again as the condition is spelled out.
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