“... Our text stands in close relationship to a river ordeal since it, too, provides that the punishment is built into the ordeal. However, the punishment differs: The guilty woman does not die but becomes sterile (see Excursus 9 for its significance). [...] This surmise could find support by the water ordeal-oath laws found in the Code of Hammurabi (pars. 131-132; ANET, p. 171), which merit quoting in full (but in reverse order): 132. If a finger has been pointed at a man’s wife because of another man, but she has not been caught lying with that other man, she shall leap into the River for the sake of her husband. 131. If a man’s wife was accused by her husband, but she was not caught while lying with another man, she shall make an oath by the god and return home. The two Babylonian laws on the suspected but unapprehended adulteress are distinguished from each other by their cause: In 132, suspicion arises from a third party (perhaps someone has seen her enter the house of another man), resulting in public demand for the ordeal; in 131, it is the husband himself who suspects his wife. [...] In any event, the biblical law did not follow the Babylonian precedent completely. It clearly introduced the following modifications: (1) if the rumor originated in the community it was still only the husband who could press charges (v. 15); (2) the judicial procedures, the oath and ordeal, that occurred separately in Mesopotamian law were combined in Israel ...”