Question of the Week: Does the book of Numbers support the use of abortaphagents/chemical abortions? (7/18/2018)
Verses: Numbers 5:11-21
There are three very important things we need to remember about scripture. 1. Always read the whole text before coming to conclusions about it. 2. Make sure you aren’t assuming certain things before you read the text. And 3. Make sure what you take away from the passage lines up with the Bible as a whole.
1. The whole text is talking about how to legally deal with the accusation of adultery. They will stand before God and the woman will either admit or deny her guilt. The priest will take dirt, only dirt, mix it with the paper and ink that includes her charge and be required to drink it. What made the situation unique was that it was to take place before the presence of God in the Tabernacle. If she’s lying, she will gain weight, her thigh will rot, and she will become a curse among her people. If she’s telling the truth, the guy will be required to pay a fine for the false accusation and be known for the rest of his life as a loser. If she’s guilty of adultery, she will be charged with it. How? God will curse her for lying in His presence. It has nothing to do with the special dirt and chemical mixture of the ink on the paper. Other scholars have claimed it was a psychosomatic drug, meaning all in their heads, to persuade the woman not to lie lest the things no woman wants will end up happening to them. I.E. Massive weight gain, infertility, etc. I don’t think this is the case personally, but you’re welcome to check those out on your own time.
2. The assumption that her thigh rotting and becoming a curse among her people equating to abortion requires two vital assumptions. 1. The woman being pregnant in the first place, which isn’t mentioned in the passage. Only assumed. And 2. Being a curse among her people means having a miscarriage. When I compare that to other examples in the Bible like John the Baptist’s parents in Luke 1, you’ll recall Elizabeth praised God when she became pregnant for taking away her reproach among her people. Was this because she had a miscarriage? Not at all. She hadn’t had any kids as explained earlier in the chapter. It was a cultural curse by God to not have children, and the result of this curse from God would make her infertile. Not to lose her child, which you have to assume is in her womb in the first place to think this is talking about abortion.
3. If you take this passage on its own and compare it to the rest of scripture, you see God’s justice as well as His desire for truth and equal treatment. The man is given a penalty for a false accusation because he’s violated a relationship. In that culture, women didn’t have a voice and we see that in Islamic cultures even today. The accusation of adultery was a death sentence until God’s law required it to have a fair trial that included a curse. Why? Because truth matters as well. Lying before Him is not something recommended in scripture. However, is abortion? Is the death of an unborn child? Some may look at David’s act with Bathsheba and the child of their adultery dying as a result, but it fails to hold water when you actually read that passage and see the child was already born and taken to Heaven by God personally after a prophetic warning, and not as a result of being put through this test in Bathsheba’s womb. We don’t read a single situation where this test was used to end pregnancies. Only to come to verdicts. Likewise, God specifically condemned child sacrifice as something so abhorrent to Him that it was one of the reasons He kicked Israel out of the land for 70 years. See Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, and 31:25.
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