Peace at Home #02: God Dragged Through the Mud

Before I jump into the actual principles of Shalom Bayit, I wanted to briefly tell you how Jonathan and I got here. As I sat down and started writing, I realized this was anything but brief.

If you missed last week, catch up with What’s the Mission of Your Marriage?

Jonathan and I got married, and I’m sure like you, we expected a few hard moments, but overall we expected it to be blissful and fairly easy.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, we were met with a crazy amount of tension and awkwardness trying to navigate this new phase of life. Don’t get me wrong, it was a beautiful time and one that I wouldn’t change for the whole world. But we had to learn each other all over again. Dating was one relationship. Husband and wife was a very different relationship.

One day we were studying Numbers and we came across this very obscure ritual. At first, it seemed barbaric. When you’re studying the Bible - because we’re so far removed from the time, place, language, and culture of the time - some scriptures can be incomprehensible at first glance. But we we dug deeper, and we found something so beautiful. Here’s a brief description of the scene below:

A woman is suspected of not being faithful to her husband. He takes her to the Levite priest, who stirs together a cocktail made with sacred water and holy dust from the ground of the Tabernacle. A curse is written down, and the ink is then washed into the cocktail. If she gives her consent to take the test, she drinks the cocktail. If she is guilty, she will die. If she is innocent, the Lord will bless her with miraculous fertility. [You can read the whole thing in Numbers 5]

Both outcomes are supernatural. Sandy water is harmless. But once trust in a marriage is broken, it is next to impossible to restore. This test is unprecedented in the Temple. There is no other civil matter in all of the Torah in which God chooses to become so directly involved.

Just how involved does God get? The answer is hidden in the curse that the priest writes out and then erases by washing the ink into the cocktail. In Judaism, it is forbidden to erase the name of God. In the Ten Commandments, it says to “sanctify His name.” Sanctify means to make it holy, set it apart for special use, to show the respect that is due Him. Do not make it common, everyday - and definitely do not erase it. But in the curse, His Name is written not once, but TWICE, before the priest is commanded to erase it into the water.

Take a moment. Let that sink in.

God allows His Name to be dragged through the mud. Twice. For the sake of peace in their home.

This strange passage was the beginning of our journey toward the mission of our marriage, shalom bayit. Next week, I’ll be sharing what else we discovered God was willing to do for the sake of peace in the home, and how it solidified this commitment for me and Jonathan.