What Does Numbers 5:24 Mean?
And he causes the woman to drink the bitter water that brings the curse; and the water that brings the curse enters into her, and becomes bitter.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter.THE KEY
The water does not merely carry a curse from outside: as it enters the woman, the verse says it becomes bitter.
THE MEANING
The woman drinks water named for bitterness and cursing; it enters her and becomes bitter. The curse takes bodily form in what she swallows, moving from something named over her to something that reaches inside her.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a curse remains only spoken language is undone here: it becomes something swallowed.
THE ROOT
מָרִים
marim
GROWS FROM
מרר
marar
To be bitter; bitterness as a taste or condition.
The verse names the water bitter, then repeats the same root in “become bitter”: bitterness is both what the water is called and what it becomes. The same root names the waters of Marah, opening bitterness as a condition carried and tasted through water.
ALSO GROWS
mar: Bitter.
מַר
This adjective names the water’s taste and carries the same root into the verse’s final description.
merorim: Bitter herbs.
מְרֹרִים
The root also names something bitter that is eaten, keeping the verse’s focus on bitterness taken into the body.
הַמְאָרְרִים
hame'arerim
GROWS FROM
ארר
arar
To curse; to place under a curse.
“Bitter” and “causing the curse” sound close, but they come from separate roots: marar names bitterness, while arar names cursing. That distinction makes the verse’s movement precise: the curse names what the water carries, and bitterness names what it becomes.
ALSO GROWS
arur: Cursed.
אָרוּר
This form describes the state of being under the curse that the water carries.
me'erah: Curse.
מְאֵרָה
This noun makes the curse itself explicit, echoing the water’s name in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Water becomes a bodily sign of bitterness when what it carries is taken in or made present.
And they came to Marah, and could not drink its waters, for they were bitter; so its name was called Marah, bitterness.Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel. Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them waters of gall to drink.And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters becomes wormwood, and many among humankind die from the waters, because they are made bitter.THE THREAD
And they came to Marah, and could not drink its waters, for they were bitter; so its name was called Marah, bitterness.Marah and “bitter” grow from the same Hebrew root, מרר (marar), used for the water’s bitterness here. In Numbers, bitterness enters the woman through the water; at Marah, the same root marks water that cannot be drunk.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us