ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף רות 1:20

AND THE PRIEST SHALL HAVE IN HIS HAND ‘MEI HAMARIM’ (THE WATER OF BITTERNESS) THAT CAUSETH THE CURSE. The commentators⁸²Rashi and Ibn Ezra. have written that Scripture describes it [i.e., the water of bitterness] in terms of its final effect, for there will be a bitterness in it, and G-d will deal very bitterly with her,⁸³See Ruth 1:20. and it will effect a curse upon her. So also have our Rabbis said in the Sifre:⁸⁴Sifre Naso 11. “the water is called water of bitterness because of its final effect, for it effects a curse⁸⁵In our Sifre: “makes the body ‘bitter’ (sick).” on the body and brings to light the sin.” But in the Gemara [of Tractate Sotah] the Sages have said⁸⁶Sotah 20 a. that the priest put a bitter substance in the water, in order to arouse her. If so, the verse stating, and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter⁸⁷Further, Verse 27. should rather have said: “and the bitter water shall enter into her to cause the curse,” [since the bitter substance was already present in the water before she drank it]. And in the Sifre it is further stated:⁸⁸Sifre Naso 16. “And he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.⁸⁹Verse 23. The verse teaches you that it is the writing [on the scroll of the sotah which was blotted out into the water] which makes the water bitter.”
The correct interpretation appears to me to be in accordance with its plain meaning, for when the woman drinks the water, it will taste to her just like any other water, and only afterwards when it enters into her, will it arouse her if she had become defiled [i.e., committed adultery], and then she will immediately feel the bitterness in her mouth and inside her. Therefore Scripture states, And when he hath made her drink the water, then it shall come to pass, if she be defiled, and have acted unfaithfully against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter,⁹⁰Verse 27. This shows that the water is called mei hamarim in our verse because of its final effect, for if she is guilty, the curses that have been erased into the water will cause a bitter taste and the fatal effects described further on. for it is after drinking, when the water enters her belly, that it immediately becomes bitter in her mouth and inside her, as happens with all substances which make one nauseous and cause vomiting, that they seem very bitter to those that drink them. After that her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away.⁹⁰Verse 27. This shows that the water is called mei hamarim in our verse because of its final effect, for if she is guilty, the curses that have been erased into the water will cause a bitter taste and the fatal effects described further on. The water is called [in the verse before us] m’orerim [from the root arur — “cursed”] because of the curses [written on the scroll] which have been erased into the water, and which cause her to suffer their effects.
Now the commentators⁹¹The commentators quoted above. The point involved is as follows: Since the commentators explain that mei hamarim is a reference to the final effect of the water, the word mei cannot be in construct [‘the water of’ bitterness — for it is not yet bitter]; thus the word mei here merely means “water” — “the bitter water,” and is so called because of its final effect. However, as Ramban continues, according to the Rabbis who said that the bitter substance was mixed with the water, the word mei may indeed be understood as being in construct — “the water ‘of’ bitterness,” since the water was already bitter. have said that the word mei [‘mei’ hamarim] is like mayim hamarim [“the bitter water”], the word mei [literally: “the water of”] being stated here in a construct form in place of the absolute form, just as we find [an opposite verse]: mayim birkayim⁹²Ezekiel 47:3. [literally: “the water the ankles,” where the word mayim occurs in the absolute form, but is really to be understood in the construct: mei birkayim — “the water ‘of’ the ankles,” i.e., water which reached as high as the ankles]. But Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote that “the word mei is [indeed] construct [meaning: the water ‘of’], but the word hamarim is an adjectival noun [meaning: ‘the bitter substances’ — thus mei hamarim means ‘the water of bitter substances’], and if so, the secret thereof is known.”⁹³A reference by Ibn Ezra to the statement of the Sages that a bitter substance had to be mixed with the water, and hence the term mei hamarim — “the water of bitter substances.” But [Ibn Ezra’s interpretation] does not appear to me to be correct, because the verse states, and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter.⁹⁰Verse 27.

לא יום אחד תאכלון ולא יומים, “You will not only eat it for a single day or two days, etc.” The numbers here are usually doubled up, i.e. not one but two, not five but ten, not ten but twenty. It is as if G’d were saying they will eat as much as they could, employing all the fingers on hands and feet in the process. The final statement “until a full month of days,” suggests that until the moon has come full circle the people will still be busy wolfing down the meat. The words: “until it will come out of your nose,” suggests that until the smell of the meat evaporates seeing that the smell is concentrated in the nose. The words: “it will become nauseating for you,” refer to the fact that that which had previously been the object of your irrepressible desire will instead become something nauseating for you. We find a similar phenomenon after Amnon had raped his half-sister Tamar when his erstwhile love for her turned into an abiding hatred (Samuel II 13,15). The reason the word לזרא is spelled with the letter א at the end instead of the letter ה, is to describe the intense repugnance the people felt for the very meat they had craved so much only a month ago. Every time a word which is normally spelled with the letter ה is spelled with the letter א instead, the idea is to show the intensified measure of what the word represents. Examples are: when Naomi says she should be called the “bitter” one, meaning מרה, the author of the Book of Ruth spelled the word with the letter א at the end to demonstrate the depth of Naomi’s embitteredness. She spelled it out saying המר שדי לי מאד, “G’d has caused me much to be bitter about.” A similar example is found in Daniel 11,44 where the word חמא, for anger or alarm, normally spelled חמה, is spelled with the letter א at the end to describe the profound alarm caused by the news described in that verse. What happened to the Israelites in this instance is only typical of what happens to people who overindulge their lust and craving for physical pleasures. They start out by complaining about physical pleasures denied them and neglect spiritual values in their headlong pursuit of these “apparent” pleasures only to find in the end that their very pleasures are the reason that they die prematurely. Solomon defined such supposedly sweet pleasure as נפת, saying of the seductress נפת תטופנה שפתי זרה וחלק משמן חכה, “her lips drip honey; her mouth is smoother than oil” (Proverbs 5,3). In the verse following Solomon describes the conclusion of that seduction as “in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.”

והיה לכם לזרא, “it will become loathsome for you.” The Torah substituted the letter א at the end of this word, where we would have expected the letter ה. There are other examples of this in the Bible, such as Ruth 1,20 קראן לי מרא, “call me the embittered one,” where we also would have expected the author to have written: מרה. The meaning of the word לזרא, is: להסיג, to remove, to vomit. Isaiah uses that expression in Isaiah 1,4 נזורו אחור, when describing the Jewish people’s moral turpitude by having turned their back on G-d and His commandments. We find it also in Numbers 17,2: as an imperative: זרה הלאה, “scatter it! (the destructive glowing coals on his pan containing incense). G-d commands the people to gorge themselves on the meat so much so that in the end it will become repugnant to them, no longer an object of their desire. Eventually, they will vomit it in disgust.