Does Numbers Chapter Five, affirm abortion? A Biblical Analysis

Is an abortion affirmed and prescribed in Numbers 5?

I have often heard it put forward as a defense of abortion that the Bible is quite explicit on how to go about one and in fact, some argue that the bible gives instructions on how to perform one. The usual citation for this is the odd story in Numbers 5:11-31 of the “water of bitterness” or, in some mind’s “poison”, administered to a woman under suspicion of adultery.

The line of reasoning is generally that the priest gives the woman something to drink, she has a miscarriage and so God has ordered an abortion. But the flaws in this explanation are too overwhelming to ignore. The most obvious being that the text does not support it.

We should be candid about this. Some of the Hebrew in Numbers 5 raises legitimate questions, and as Christians who hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, we do well not to ignore them just because someone is wielding the passage to make a case for abortion. We have no need to shy away from difficult parts of the Word; we deal with what God has said honestly and with a critical heart.

Apply that to Numbers 5 and I think you will find the notion that God is mandating an abortion does not hold up.

What are we actually reading in Numbers 5?

As with most other difficult passages and disagreements, it is a matter of context. This is no passage on an unwanted pregnancy. There is no wife approaching a priest to end her condition, nor a husband who doesn’t want the child and brings her in. In fact, there is no mention of pregnancy at all.

The scenario is a husband who suspects his wife of adultery but lacks the witnesses to prove it (Num. 5:12-14). He takes her to the priest and a ritual is undertaken to put the issue before God.

The priest mixes some dust from the tabernacle floor with holy water (Num. 5:17) and the woman, under oath, drinks it. One must remember that water and dust are not naturally abortive. The priest is not putting on a medical hat. If anything comes of it, God has willed it. It is an ordeal of divine judgment, and the woman is considered innocent unless God makes a supernatural show of her guilt. Hardly a description of a procedure to induce an abortion and to make the claim that this is at all similar to what we see in abortion today, is quite frankly, poor scholarship, but I digress.

Then there is the question of whether the text says she miscarries. That is the source of much of the debate.

In Numbers 5:21-22 the ESV has the LORD making “your thigh fall away and your body swell.” The NIV is more direct, saying “your womb miscarries.” But “miscarry” is an interpretive choice. The Hebrew does not say the baby will die. And again, we are never told the woman is with child.

John Piper has made a good point on this. The word yarek can mean the loins or reproductive region. If the organs “fall,” one could read it as a severe prolapse or some other ruinous judgment on her capacity to reproduce, rather than the ending of a current pregnancy.

Can we be absolutely certain of the physical ailment the Hebrew describes? Probably not. But we don’t have to be. We let Scripture stand on its own terms.

Take verse 28 for instance:

“But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.”

The contrast is telling.

One could say the innocent woman is left with the ability to have children, which in turn points to a judgment on the guilty woman’s reproductive capacity. The one who is innocent retains her fertility; the other endures God’s hand upon her organs. It is a sensible way to read the passage without putting words into Numbers that are not there, such as an actual pregnancy.

I see good cause for reading Numbers 5 as an account of divinely wrought reproductive judgment, be it infertility or some other calamity of the organs, and not a miscarriage. At the very least, the text does not provide the grounds for making a confident claim to that effect, let alone for calling it an abortion procedure.

But let us put that aside for the sake of argument.

There is something more at stake here. Let us assume I am mistaken. Let us say “her thigh shall fall away” is code for a miscarriage and the woman is in fact with child, though the writer does not spell it out. And let us say God’s supernatural retribution for her adultery puts an end to that unborn life.

What bearing does that have on our right to put an end to an unborn child?

None.

A Reformed view of God’s sovereignty is key to understanding why. There is a world of difference between God ending a life and a human doing so of his own accord. God is the Creator, not merely another creature.

Moses makes this plain in Deuteronomy 32:39: “See now that I, even I, am he … I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”

Hannah puts it in much the same terms in 1 Samuel 2:6, saying the LORD brings down to Sheol and raises up. Job, having lost his children, was moved to confess in Job 1:21, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Scripture is careful to note in the next verse that he did not sin in saying so.

Why? Because all souls are God’s, as Ezekiel 18:4 attests. We cannot make that claim. He is the one who creates and sustains life and numbers our days. An authority over life and death that is the prerogative of the Creator alone.

It is a fundamental distinction.

This is where the argument from Numbers 5 falls apart, even on its most contentious reading. To contend that because God took a life in Scripture we may do the same is plainly flawed logic. If that were to hold, then every biblical ban on murder would be rendered void by God’s sovereignty in determining when a person dies. But God’s sovereignty is no license for murder. You will not find this distinction more plainly on display than at the cross.

It was God who in His sovereignty willed the death of Jesus Christ. As Peter puts it in Acts 2:23, Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” But read on in that same verse and Peter is quick to lay the blame at the feet of men: “you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

Consider the matter for a moment. The sovereign decree of God does not make an unlawful killing by man any less a sin. God ordained the event; men were the ones who sinned.

This is of great consequence when we return to Numbers 5. Suppose for the sake of argument that God brought about the death of an unborn child in judgment. That would no more entitle us to put an end to such life than the fact that God ordained the crucifixion gives us license to put innocent men on crosses. We are not God.

What Does the Rest of Scripture Have to Say?

One should not be in the habit of constructing a whole theology of the unborn on the back of some contested rendering of a difficult Hebrew phrase. We let Scripture interpret itself.

Take David in Psalm 139:13: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” Or Jeremiah, to whom God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (1:5). Luke has no trouble calling John the Baptist a baby (brephos) while he is still in Elizabeth’s womb (1:41, 44), using the very same Greek term for a child already born in chapter 2.

The picture is consistent enough: what is in the womb is God’s creature, under His providence. That life is His.

So, is Numbers 5 really an account of an abortion?

I am not convinced. The woman is never said to be with child, nor is the drink she partakes of an abortifacient. The Hebrew in question doesn’t say “miscarriage” outright. If anything, the context and verse 28 suggest a supernatural judgment on the woman’s future fertility. To call the passage instructions for an abortion is to put words in the text that aren’t there.

But even if one were to take the miscarriage view, the case for abortion would not hold up. You would have God in Numbers 5 making use of His sovereign right to judge human life. That is not the same as granting us the moral standing to do away with an innocent life as we see fit. They are entirely different things.

And there lies the crux of the matter.

It is easy to ask if we can end a pregnancy. Of course we can. The proper question is whether we have the authority to intentionally take an innocent life. Numbers 5 offers no such authority; on the contrary, the ordeal is predicated on the fact that judgment is God’s alone. He is the Creator and we are the creatures. Life is His. That makes all the difference.