Sotah (סוטה, “wayward wife”) deals with the ritual of the Sotah – the woman suspected of adultery as described and prescribed in the Book of Numbers in Numbers 5:. Part of the Biblical ritual to determine if a wife suspected and accused of adultery, but not proven to have done so based on any reliable witnesses that obviates this ritual, is the so-called “ordeal of bitter water” to be applied in certain cases of suspected adultery.
Specifically, the Hebrew Bible requires that a pregnant[2] woman, suspected of adultery, be subjected to this ordeal if her husband becomes fiercely jealous about the pregnancy (literally has the storm-wind of jealousy), and there are not enough witnesses able to confirm the woman’s guilt or innocence.
The ritual is fairly unique in the Torah, and although some scholars think that it might be mentioned by a psalm, there is no other Biblical evidence for the ritual ever having been carried out, nor is its existence acknowledged elsewhere in the Bible.
According to the Mishnah, the ritual of Sotah was formally abolished in the middle of the first century (20 years before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem).
To read the text clic here: