Sotah 027

He would bring her cereal-offering in a wicker basket and place it on her hands in order to tire her.

The 'he' here is the woman's husband, who would present his wife together with an offering of barley in a wicker basket. The woman would be required to hold this basket throughout the proceedings until the point which we have now reached.

2:
According to Rabbi Ovadyah of Bertinoro, in his commentary on our present mishnah, the 'he' refers to the woman's husband (and not the priest): the husband would transfer the barley from the wicker basket into a ritual container – a basin of precious metal – and would place this in the woman's hands. After that the officiating priest would place his hands under hers and together they would wave the offering in several directions (similar to the way that the Four Species are waved to this day during the festival of Sukkot).

In Sotah 024 you mentioned the application of the sotah ceremony to a levirate marriage. There is a concept in Jewish marriage (or arrangement of marriage) called "mi'un," in which the woman may refuse to marry her appointed groom. This may have occurred at times in the case of levirate marriage, in which a young widow may have been required to marry someone much older than herself (or her deceased husband). I don't recall this term coming up in kiddushin. Can you elaborate?

I respond:

When we studied Tractate Kiddushin, Chapter 3, Mishnah 7 I wrote:

When we studied the second mishnah of chapter 2 we noted that the officiating priest would take some dirt from under a special stone that was provided with a ring with which to haul it up and put this dirt into the water which the woman would be required to drink.

Richley Crapo asks:

In the phrase, 'from the floor of the sanctuary,' does 'sanctuary' refer to the Azarah or heikal?

I respond:

It refers to the Heikhal, the sanctuary building.

Part of the adjuration that the officiating priest uses with the woman contains the warning that 'your thigh will fall away and your body will swell'. Aviva Orenstein writes:

It has always struck me that the indication of infidelity prompted by the sotah waters seems a lot like a description of an abortion or a parody of a pregnancy gone wrong. If indeed drinking the waters aborts the fetus, this would explain why the husband cannot lie with the wife once he formally makes his suspicions known, on the chance a legitimate child would be aborted. Has anyone ever put forward this or a related theory?

I respond:

To the best of my knowledge this theory has not been put forward.