Topic
Swell
3 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Numbers 5:11–31ISBE
¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close,…
- Deuteronomy 8:4ISBE
Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.
- Nehemiah 9:21ISBE
Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 3 references
swel (tsabhah): In the ordeal of the Water of Jealousy described in Nu 5:11-31 (P), the effect on the unfaithful wife ot the drinking of the holy water was to cause the thigh to fall away (Revised Version) or rot (the King James Version) and the abdomen to "swell." This ceremonial was a direct appeal to the judgment of God, for there was nothing in the holy water (taken from the laver) or the dust of the temple which was mixed with it to produce this effect. In the Talmudic tract Cotah there are given many rabbinical opinions and particulars as to the procedure in later times. Apparently from the passage in Numbers, the judgment speedily followed the appeal, but according to Sotah, iii.4, it might be postponed even for four years, and in v.1, it is said to have produced the same effect on the adulterer as on the unfaithful wife. We have no details as to the nature or permanency of the swelling.
"Swell" as the translation of another word, batseq, is used in the sense of blistering of the feet from long tramping. Both in De 8:4 and Ne 9:21 it is said that in spite of their long wilderness marches the feet of the Israelites did not swell. This was a token of divine protection.
See SWOLLEN.
Alexander Macalister
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.