Yerushalmi Sotah 1:7 ירושלמי סוטה א׳:ז׳

MISHNAH: By the measure a person measures one measures him. She adorned herself for sin, therefore the Omnipresent²⁴¹The open water canal which crosses the Temple yard from North to South. made her ugly. She bared herself for sin, therefore the Omnipresent laid her bare. The genitals were first in sin and after that the belly; the genitals should be punished first and then the belly²⁴⁶Num. 5:21: “When the Eternal will make your genitals shrink and your belly extend.” (In the event, v. 27, the order is reversed.) J. C. Brichto (loc. cit. Note 225) identifies the symptoms as pseudocyesis, spurious pregnancy., while the remainder of the body does not escape²⁴⁷Rabbinic tradition (Mishnah 3:4/5) holds that the guilty woman dies from the draught. This is not in the Biblical text..

HALAKHAH: “By the measure a person measures one measures him,” etc. ²⁴⁸Tosephta 3:1, Babli 8b. Midrash Tehillim 81(2), Num. rabba 9(23). It was stated in the name of Rebbi Meïr: By the measure a person measures one measures him²⁴⁹The maxim “measure for measure” is found many times; e. g. Babli Šabbat 105b, Megillah 12b, Sanhedrin 90a, Sifry Num. 106 (cf. Halakhah 9), Mekhilta dR. Ismael (ed. Horovitz-Rabin) pp. 78,81,131; Gen. rabba 9(13), Ex. rabba 25(13) [shortened 9(9)]; Tanḥuma Noaḥ 13, Wa’era 14, Bešallaḥ 2,4, Tazria‘ 6; and very frequently in the Gaonic literature.. What is the reason? בְּסַאסְּאָה.²⁵⁰1s. 27:8., seah for seah. Not only a seah, from where a three-qab²⁵¹A seah is a Roman urna, 12.85 1. The seah contains 6 qab (κάβος); a terqab is half a seah (Gaonic Commentary to Mishnah Kelim 12:3; misinterpreted as תְּרֵיקָב “two qab” in Graetz, Geschichte der Judäer⁴ vol. 3, p. 443.), half a three-qab, half a qab, a quarter [qab], a toman²⁵²A toman is 1/8 qab, identical to a Roman hemina, Greek ἡμίνα, ½sextarius., half a toman, or an ukla²⁵³In the Babli עוכלא; a quarter toman, a Roman acetabulum, 6.6 cl. Qalir (Silluq Šabbat Šeqalim) calls it כלה and reports that it is slightly less than a hundredth of a seah.? The verse says, “for all that is in a seah, breaks the seah noisily²⁵⁴1s. 9:4.;” he added many seot here. Not only things that can be measured, from where that small coins add up to a large bill? The verse says, “one to one, to find the bill.²⁵⁵Eccl. 7:27. This is the end of the Tosephta and the parallel in the Babli.” It happens in the world that a person stumbles in a sin for which one would be punished by death by the hands of Heaven. His ox dies, his hen is lost, his flask breaks, and he hurts his finger, by that the bill is paid in full. Another explanation: One is filled into the next and the bill is established. And what is the fulfillment of the bill? Once²⁵⁶This explanation is the opposite of the first, that many small sins add up to one huge bill presented to a man by the Heavenly court..

²⁵⁷Parallels in Babli Giṭṭin 90a/b; Tosephta 5:9, Num. rabba 9(8). It was stated in the name of Rebbi Meïr: Just as there are opinions in eating and drinking, so opinions are [varied] among men. There is a man, if a fly falls into his cup, he takes it out, throws it away and drinks. That is like a normal man who sees his wife talking to her neighbors and relatives²⁵⁸Males. (In one version of the Tosephta, קְרוֹבוֹתֶיהָ “female relatives” but S. Lieberman comments on it as קְרוֹבֶיהָ without remark.) It may be that this refers to the case where the wife talks overly long to her male neighbors.. Or you have a man who if a fly flies over his cup, takes it, pours [the contents] out, and does not taste them. That is a bad human attitude because he thinks of divorcing her²⁵⁹Just as the fly did not touch the cup, the wife did nothing wrong; the husband simply looks for an excuse to divorce her without paying.. Or you have a man who, if a fly sits on his cup, takes it and leaves [the cup] untouched. That is Pappos ben Jehudah who locked his wife in. They said to him, did your forefathers behave like this²⁶⁰This Aramaic sentence is a commentary of the Talmud; it is not in the other sources.? Or you have a man who finds a dead fly in his cup, takes it, licks it, and drinks. That is the wicked one who sees that his wife is overbearing with her slaves and slave-girls²⁶¹This argument (not found in the Babli, but found in Tosephta and Midrash) seems to contradict the statement of Mishnah 6 that every woman is supposed to feel superior to her slaves. The meaning here seems to be that she has no inhibitions to appear in undress before her slaves., where he would be commanded to divorce her²⁶²The other sources have a long list of indecent behavior of the wife that should force the husband to divorce her; cf. Mishnah Ketubot 7:6., as it is said: “She left his house and went and married another man.” The verse called him other because he is not of the class of the first who expelled his wife because of a sexual transgression and the other one stumbled over her²⁶³In the Babli, 6a, this interpretation is part of the legal argument that a woman formally accused by her husband cannot be married in levirate after the husband’s death.. If Heaven gives him credit, he will divorce her; otherwise, at the end she will bury him as it is said, “or if the latter man dies.” That man deserves to die since he brought that woman into his house.

Samuel²⁶⁴In the Babli, 27a, Samuel is reported saying that it is better to marry a woman of questionable character born of a woman of good character than to marry the daughter of a possible adulteress. The opinion attributed to Samuel here is that of R. Joḥanan in the Babli. said, one separates from the whoring woman but not from her house. This parallels what Rebbi Joḥanan said: ²⁶⁵Tosephta Yebamot 12:8, quoted as tannaïtic text in the Babli, 27a.“If a married woman committed adultery, her children are her husband’s since most of the intercourse was with the husband.”

One verse says: “For swelling of the belly and shrinking of the genitals,” another verse says “her belly will swell and her genitals shrink”, and another verse says “when the Eternal will make your genitals shrink and your belly swell.”²⁶⁶In Num. 5:22,27, the belly is mentioned before the genitals but in v. 21 the order is inverted. Does one verse weigh more than two verses? Rebbi Mana said, here for the act, there conditional²⁶⁷Num. 5:22,27 is a description of what will or did happen; v. 21 is a curse formula conditional upon the woman having sinned.. Rebbi Abin said, you may even say in both cases for the act, in both cases as a condition. “For swelling of the belly and shrinking of the genitals” for the adulterer²⁶⁸The infinitives in the sentence are gender neutral. The ordeal indirectly also affects the presumed adulterer, Mishnah 6:1. In the Babli, 27a, this is a conclusion of Rebbi.. “Her belly will swell and her genitals shrink”, for the woman. Reason decides, “the genitals were first in sin and after that the belly; the genitals should be punished first and then the belly, while the remainder of the body does not escape.” Rebbi Abba the son of Rebbi Pappeus used this as conclusion of a sermon: Since for [heavenly] punishment, which is meted out sparingly, one limb is smitten and all limbs hurt, in the case of [heavenly] benefices, which are given out in abundance²⁶⁹Babli 11a; extensive discussion in Tosephta 4:1., [may we] not [expect] so much more!