Numbers 5 · a question people ask
Why is the man "free from iniquity"?
The chapter doesn't explain it. Its last words are, "The man shall be free from iniquity, and that woman shall bear her iniquity" (5:31). "The man" there is the husband, who brings his wife to the priest (5:15, 5:30). The law is for when "the spirit of jealousy comes on him", whether she is defiled or not (5:14, 5:30). The chapter doesn't say what follows for a husband whose wife is found clean, beyond that "she shall be free" (5:28), and it doesn't give a procedure for the other man in 5:13. Elsewhere, the law's penalty for adultery falls on both the man and the woman: "the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death" (Leviticus 20:10), and "they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman" (Deuteronomy 22:22).
The verses
“If the woman isn’t defiled, but is clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive offspring.”
“or when the spirit of jealousy comes on a man, and he is jealous of his wife; then he shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute on her all this law. The man shall be free from iniquity, and that woman shall bear her iniquity.’””
““‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
“If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.”