“The priest shall administer an oath to her, and he shall say to the woman: If a man has not lain with you, and if you did not stray in defilement while married to your husband, be absolved of this water of bitterness that causes curse” (Numbers 5:19). “The priest shall administer an oath to her” – the priest administers the oath to her, and she does not take the oath on her own. “And he shall say to the woman” – the priest shall teach her the content of the oath; this is the statement of Rabbi Yishmael.
Rabbi Yonatan says: If she does not understand his language, he shall say it to her by means of an interpreter. “If a man has not lain with you” – to include one who performed the initial stage of intercourse from either side.151Front or back. “And if you did not stray in defilement while married to your husband” – to the exclusion of coercion. Just as “while married to your husband” is willingly, here too it is willingly.
“Be absolved of this water of bitterness that causes curse” – he would say to her: If you are pure, drink the water and do not refrain, so that you will become pure to your husband by means of this water. He would administer the oath so that she would drink. “But you, if you strayed while married to your husband, and if you were defiled, and a man has lain carnally with you, other than your husband” (Numbers 5:20).
“But you” – you did so intentionally. “If you strayed while married to your husband, and if you were defiled” – to include if she was warned regarding one who is nine years and one day old.152This is the age at which the Sages determined that a boy is physically capable of engaging in intercourse. Our Rabbis said: When a woman is in seclusion with her husband and engages in intercourse with him but her heart is devoted to another man whom she saw along the way, you have no greater adultery than that, as it is stated: “Adulterous wife, who takes strangers instead [taḥat] of her husband” (Ezekiel 16:32).
Is there a woman who engages in adultery while being with [taḥat] her husband?153The word taḥat literally means "under." Rather, this is one who encountered another man and coveted him, and she engages in intercourse with her husband but her heart is devoted to him. The Arabian king asked Rabbi Akiva: ‘I am a Cushite, and my wife is a Cushite, and she gave birth to a white child; I will kill her because she committed an act of harlotry while married to me.’
He [Rabbi Akiva] said to him: ‘Are the statues and portraits in your house black or white?’ He said to him [Rabbi Akiva]: ‘White.’ He [Rabbi Akiva] said to him: ‘While you were busy with her, she fixed her glance at the white art forms, and she gave birth in their image. If you wonder regarding this matter, derive it from the flock of Jacob our patriarch, as they would conceive in the presence of the rods.
As it is stated: “The flocks conceived in the presence of the rods”’ (Genesis 30:39); and the Arabian king conceded to Rabbi Akiva. Here too, Moses alluded in the Torah: “[If you strayed] while married to your husband, and if you were defiled, and a man has lain carnally with you, other than your husband.”154Although thinking of another man while being with her husband is called "adultery," the woman is not liable for it and it is not included in the oath.
It is not only in this regard155The man with regard to whom she was warned. that we are administering the oath to you, but regarding what you strayed with anybody other than your husband. It is taught: “Other than your husband” – to the exclusion of if the other act of intercourse preceded your husband, as if her husband had lain with her afterward, the water does not examine her. But did we not learn: Just as the water examines her, the water examines him.
Just as she is forbidden to her husband so she is forbidden to the paramour. Just as she is forbidden to the husband’s brother, so she is forbidden to the paramour’s brother. Just as the water examines her for each and every act of intercourse that she receives from her husband after the paramour, so they examine him. Rabbi Avin said in the name of Rabbi Eila: Here it is where it is known;156When the husband knew that she had consorted with the paramour. here it is where it is unknown.