Another Look at the Magical Ritual for a Suspected Adulteress in Numbers 5:11–31

Most scholars have asserted that the mysogynist ritual to be inflicted on a possible śōṭâ ("adulteress" or "wayward wife") in Num. 5:11-31 had a magical quality. Frequently, however, commentators have also considered some or all of the passage's Yahwistic features as interpolations intended to forestall the allegation that the officiating priest is engaging in magic. The present study argues that if we abandon the outdated view that magic and normative Yahwism were antithetical, Num. 5:11-31 can be interpreted as having been written by a single author who envisions a ritual simultaneously magical and Yahwistic. The ritual is predicated on an incantatory curve in vv. 21-22, and exhibits magic by speech, magic by rite and magic by inherent property (the ancient Egyptian tripartite categorization of magic).