Help interpreting this article

[Serafina]

Num. 5:25: The priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall elevate the grain offering before the LORD and bring it to the altar;
Num. 5:26: and the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering, as its memorial portion, and turn it into smoke on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water.
Num. 5:27: When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse (ארר) shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb (בטן) shall discharge (צבה), her uterus (ירך) drop (נפל), and the woman shall become an execration (אלה, or “curse”) among her people.

Can I have some help interpreting what this means for catholicism’s opinions on abortion, if anything?

 

[Fauken]

Can I have some help interpreting what this means for catholicism’s opinions on abortion, if anything?

First, the verses preceding it.

“5:11 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
5:12 Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The man whose wife shall have gone astray, and contemning her husband,
5:13 Shall have slept with another man, and her husband cannot discover it, but the adultery is secret, and cannot be proved by witnesses, because she was not found in the adultery:
5:14 If the spirit of jealousy stir up the husband against his wife, who either is defiled, or is charged with false suspicion,
5:15 He shall bring her to the priest, and shall offer an oblation for her, the tenth part of a measure of barley meal: he shall not pour oil thereon, nor put frankincense upon it: because it is a sacrifice of jealousy, and an oblation searching out adultery.
5:16 The priest therefore shall offer it, and set it before the Lord.
5:17 And he shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and he shall cast a little earth of the pavement of the tabernacle into it.
5:18 And when the woman shall stand before the Lord, he shall uncover her head, and shall put on her hands the sacrifice of remembrance, and the oblation of jealousy: and he himself shall hold the most bitter waters, whereon he hath heaped curses with execration.
5:19 And he shall adjure her, and shall say: If another man hath not slept with thee, and if thou be not defiled by forsaking thy husband’s bed, these most bitter waters, on which I have heaped curses, shall not hurt thee.
5:20 But if thou hast gone aside from thy husband, and art defiled, and hast lain with another man:
5:21 These curses shall light upon thee: The Lord make thee a curse, and an example for all among his people: may he make thy thigh to rot, and may thy belly swell and burst asunder.
5:22 Let the cursed waters enter into thy belly, and may thy womb swell and thy thigh rot. And the woman shall answer, Amen, amen.”

This isn’t condoning abortion. This is describing a ritual for a Jewish couple when the man perceives his wife is unfaithful. It’s about lying before God.

 

[Serafina]

Ah, I see. Thank you for explaining this to me. Someone quoted those verses to me out of context, and I needed clarification, and you provided it. Thank you!