The Water of the Conviction of the Lord

In my last (substantive) post I discussed a few things from the Protoevangelium of James 16, 17, and 18. I must give props to Nathan Stitt for linking τὸ ὕδωρ τῆς ἐλέγξεως κυρίου, "the water of the conviction of the Lord", with Numbers 5:11-31. I think you’re right. Note this quote from that passage:

ἐν δὲ τῇ χειρὶ τοῦ ἱερέως ἔσται τὸ ὕδωρ τοῦ ἐλεγμοῦ τοῦ ἐπικαταρωμένου τούτου.

Now in the hand of the priest will be the water of this reproach which curses.

You can see that ἐλέγξεως and ἐλεγμοῦ are not the same word, but they are from the same root. And since the contexts are the same, I would have to say that the practice in Prot. Jas. is the same one from Numbers.

Thanks for pointing that out, Nathan.

Comments

Nathan Stitt 2008-04-17 01:06:45

I just remembered that I have the NETS on my bookshelf and forgot to look in it. It translates the part you quoted as, "but in the priest’s hand shall be the water of this reproof that brings the curse." Later it refers to the water also as, "the curse-bringing water of reproof." (incidentally, is there a way to do line breaks in the comments? I notice all of my returns are ignored after posted. Does your comment section support the /br or something else?)

Eric 2008-04-18 07:48:40

Yes, it is not honoring line breaks. I’m going to be changing it soon. I’m finding that annoying, as I’m sure everyone else is.

Nathan Stitt 2008-04-18 04:14:42

That will be nice. I don’t think any HTML tags are supported at all at the moment.