Numberschapter 30
16 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Numbers Overview.
This chapter turns from the offerings the calendar required to the promises a person makes to God by free choice. It was given to Israel on the plains of Moab, in the last block of law in Numbers. In that society a household had one head, and a daughter or a wife lived under a father or a husband. The chapter works out how a vow made to God fits inside that order. Listen for the single day a father or a husband has to answer, and for how much hangs on his silence. The chapter teaches that a word given to God binds the one who gives it.
Context
- Who
- The tribal heads, who judged such cases, and through them the households where a vow was made and heard
- What
- Case law on vows, setting out when a vow binds and when a father or husband may cancel it.
- Where
- The camp on the plains of Moab, where Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes.
- When
- The fortieth year after the exodus, in the last months before the crossing, about 1406 BC by the count of 1 Kings 6:1, or near 1230 BC on a later dating of the exodus.
- Why
- To hold every person to the promises made to God while settling how a household answers for them.
Historical context
Verse 1 names the speaker and the hearers plainly. Moses speaks, and he speaks to the heads of the tribes, which marks this as law for the men who would hear such cases. It stands in the fortieth year on the plains of Moab with the rest of the closing laws of the book. The occasion is the chapter that runs before it. Chapters 28 and 29 have just ordered the offerings the nation owes at fixed times. Verse 39 of chapter 29 ends by setting those beside the vow and freewill offerings a person brings by choice, which is this chapter's subject. A first hearer knew that a vow was a legal act with a price attached. A man who vowed an animal owed that animal, and a woman who vowed to deny herself food owed the fast. He also knew that a daughter in her father's house and a wife in her husband's house held no property of their own. The chapter works by one test applied four times over, which is whether the man who heard the vow spoke on the day he heard it.
Significance
The law held two things together for them at once. A word given to God stood and had to be paid, which verse 2 states without qualification for the man who vows. Where the one who vowed had no means of her own, the chapter gave the head of the house one day to answer. His silence became consent that bound him too. Verse 15 puts the guilt on a husband who annuls a vow late, so a household could rely on what had been said.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter is the ground of a body of Jewish practice about the spoken word, and this site already sets it out. The tradition separates the vow that makes a thing forbidden or dedicated from the oath that binds the person to act. Around both grew a case law of formulas and releases, and the Mishnah records the substitute words people used for the dedication formula at Nedarim 1:2. It also records that the rules for releasing vows have little in the text to rest on, at Chagigah 1:8. All of that stands at src/lib/hebraic/pharisees.ts on this chapter.
Rashi carries the practice of annulment itself. A father may annul the vow of a daughter only while she is in the middle state between a minor and a woman in full womanhood (Rashi on Numbers 30:4:2, citing Niddah 56b). A betrothed woman needs both her father and her husband to annul, and neither alone is enough (Rashi on Numbers 30:7:1). A widow or a divorced woman is under neither, so her vow stands (Rashi on Numbers 30:10:1). A husband may annul only the vows that afflict the soul, which the tractate Nedarim sets out at 79b (Rashi on Numbers 30:14:1). The day allowed for annulment runs to nightfall rather than a full twenty-four hours (Rashi on Numbers 30:15:1, citing Nedarim 76b).
How it is read
Rashi reads the first verse as a seam between two subjects. The chapter before it is the word of God to Moses, and the chapter after it opens with Moses speaking. The verse states that Moses told the people the law of the offerings as well, so that nobody would think he began with vows (Rashi on Numbers 30:1:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 152). Ramban quotes that reading from Rashi and says plainly that he does not understand it. He points to Leviticus 21:24 and Leviticus 23:44, where the same kind of closing line stands and no such separation is needed. His own reading is that the verse shows the law of the offerings was given to all Israel rather than to Aaron and his sons alone (Ramban on Numbers 30:1:1, the Chavel translation, CC-BY).
The address to the heads of the tribes is read as a rule of teaching. Rashi holds that Moses taught the princes first and the people afterwards, and that Exodus 34:31 shows this was the usual order (Rashi on Numbers 30:2:1). On the phrase that opens the law he marks what set Moses apart. Other prophets spoke with the words thus says the Lord, and Moses also spoke with the words this is the word (Rashi on Numbers 30:2:2, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 153:2). He gives a second reading of the same phrase as a restriction on the terms used. A sage releases a vow with one word and a husband annuls it with another, and an exchange of the two words does neither (Rashi on Numbers 30:2:2, citing Nedarim 78a).
Rashi sets a limit on what a vow can do. A man may forbid himself something the law permits, and he cannot permit himself something the law forbids (Rashi on Numbers 30:3:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 153:4). He reads the words against breaking a vow as a warning against making one's own word common (Rashi on Numbers 30:3:2). The hardest note in the chapter is on forgiveness. Rashi takes the verse to speak of a woman whose vow was annulled without her knowledge, who then broke it. She needs forgiveness even so, and he draws the inference forward. If she needs it, how much more the person whose vow was never annulled at all (Rashi on Numbers 30:6:2, citing Kiddushin 81b).
Ibn Ezra comments at three places here and Malbim at two, and the corpus carries none of their text. Ibn Ezra stands cited at Numbers 30:9:1, 30:10:1 and 30:17:1, held back at two of them by the licence Sefaria reports and at the third because Sefaria holds no English version. Malbim stands cited at Numbers 30:5:1 and 30:12:1, in both cases because Sefaria holds no English version.
A Christian reader will meet this chapter in the Gospels. The dedication formula that could lock a son's property away from his own parents is what Jesus confronts at Mark 7:11. The case law of swearing by substitutes is what he abolishes at Matthew 5:33 to 5:37. This site sets out both collisions at src/lib/hebraic/pharisees.ts. What the classical commentators are doing in this chapter is the working out of the annulment law itself, and they are reported here in their own terms.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Twenty-one of them are midrashic and nineteen are Talmudic. Midrash Lekach Tov stands at Numbers 30:1:1, 30:5:1, 30:6:1, 30:8:1, 30:12:1 and 30:16:1. Midrash Aggadah stands at Numbers 30:4:1, 30:4:2, 30:15:1 and 30:15:10. Sifrei Bamidbar stands at 153:5, 153:6 and 156:2, and Bamidbar Rabbah at 10:7 and 22:1. Ein Yaakov in the Glick Edition stands at Kiddushin 4:21 and Nazir 4:1. Sifra stands at Acharei Mot, Section 6 1, Yalkut Shimoni on Torah at 782:21, Midrash Sekhel Tov at Shemot 12:9:4, and the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael at Tractate Nezikin 10:31.
The Talmudic locators gather where the law of vows is settled. The Jerusalem Talmud stands at Nedarim 1:1:6, 1:1:7, 10:1:1, 10:3:2 and 11:9:1, and at Nazir 4:4:4 and 4:5:2. The Babylonian Talmud stands at Nedarim 70a:1, Ketubot 40b:4 and 46b:6, Bava Batra 120b:1 and 120b:3, Gittin 73b:16 and 85a:22, Berakhot 32a:19, Chagigah 10a:9, Shevuot 20a:4 and Bava Metzia 96a:20. One further locator stands in the Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, at Introduction to Halakhic Midrashim, Sifrei Numbers 69. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text, because the corpus holds these locators without it.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Numbers 30:1:1 to 30:16:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary translated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Ramban, Ramban on Numbers 30:1:1, the Commentary on the Torah translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel, New York, Shilo Publishing House, 1971 to 1976, CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Numbers 30:9:1, 30:10:1 and 30:17:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no text for them; Malbim, Malbim on Numbers 30:5:1 and 30:12:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/numbers/30.json, the 21 Midrash and 19 Talmud locators of this chapter, fetched 2026-09-19; MannaFest, src/lib/hebraic/pharisees.ts, the entry on Numbers 30 with Mishnah Nedarim 1:2, Mishnah Shevuot 4:13 and Mishnah Chagigah 1:8.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A man must not break his word
Numbers 30:1-2
The law on vows goes to the tribal heads, who would judge such cases. Verse 2 states the rule for a man without qualification, "he must not break his word", using the verb found elsewhere of profaning what is holy. Deuteronomy 23:21-23, Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 and Matthew 5:33 press the point, and the chapter keeps a vow to give God something apart from an oath to go without.
Numbers 30:1
“The regulations respecting vows appropriately follow those given respecting sacrifices, since a large proportion of vows would always relate to the presentation of such offerings. Rules had already been given Lev. 27 for the estimation of things vowed to God. It is probable that this fresh legislation dealing especially with vows made by persons in a state of tutelage, was occasioned by some case of practical difficulty that had recently arisen; and it is addressed by Moses to “the heads of the tribes” Num 30:1, who would in their judicial capacity have to determine questions on these subjects.”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that a vow needed spoken words. A purpose held silently in the mind did not bind. John Calvin limits the rule to lawful vows, since nothing binds the conscience that God does not accept. He adds that the law is repeated here before its exceptions, so that no one would think the two contradict.
Numbers 30:2
“If a man vow a vow - A vow is a religious promise made to God. Vows were of several kinds: - 1. Of abstinence or humiliation, see Num 30:13; 2. Of the Nazarite, see Numbers 6; 3. Of giving certain things or sacrifices to the Lord, Lev 7:16; 4. Of alms given to the poor, see Deu 23:21. The law in this chapter must have been very useful, as it both prevented and annulled rash vows, and provided a proper sanction for the support and performance of those that were rationally and piously made.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 30:2
“Moreover, since there is here a distinction made between males and females, it may be probably conjectured that boys of ten years old, although still united with their family, are bound by their promises; and therefore I will not pertinaciously contend about this, because it is better to leave undecided whatever is doubtful, and disputable, as it is commonly called, on either side.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Numbers 30:2
“But as it would frequently happen that parties would vow to do things which were neither good in themselves nor in their power to perform, the law ordained that their natural superiors should have the right of judging as to the propriety of those vows, with discretionary power to sanction or interdict their fulfilment.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
A daughter still in her father's house
Numbers 30:3-8
One procedure is written twice, for a daughter and a wife, and both turn on "the day he hears about it": after that day an unchallenged vow stands. A prohibited vow is released, "The LORD will absolve her", as a real debt remitted. Barnes reads verse 6 as a girl betrothed but not yet married, and Gill allows either the betrothed or the married woman.
Numbers 30:3
“Being in her father’s house in her youth - It was not ordinarily until her betrothal or marriage, that the female passed (some suppose by purchase) from the power of her father to that of her husband.”
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 30:3
“Hence we gather that all those who are possessed of power do not do their duty unless they frankly and discreetly express their opposition whenever anything displeases them; since their connivance is a kind of tacit approbation.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Numbers 30:3
“The judgment of a father or guardian on the vow of any under his charge might be given either by an expressed approval or by silence, which was to be construed as approval. But in the case of a husband who, after silence from day to day, should ultimately disapprove or hinder his wife's vow, the sin of non-performance was to be imputed to him and not to her [Nu 30:15].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
John Calvin draws a wider lesson from the father's silence. Those who hold authority fail in their duty if they say nothing when something displeases them, since connivance is a kind of consent. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report that Jewish writers extended the rule to sons living at home and to any guardian of the young.
Numbers 30:4
“Vowing is an ordinance of God; if we vow in hypocrisy we profane that ordinance: it is plainly determined, Better not vow than vow and not pay, Eccl. v. 5 . Be not deceived, God is not mocked. His promises to us are yea and amen, let not ours to him be yea and nay.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
John Wesley limits the father's power to vows that would invade his rights. No father could release a child from a vow to forsake a sin or to do a plain duty. Matthew Henry gives the kind of vow in view, one that might upset the family's table or cost more than the household could bear. Wesley counts the day from when the father heard.
Numbers 30:5
“The Lord shall forgive - Or, will forgive her not performing it. But this should be understood only of vows which could not be performed without invading the father's right; for if one should vow to forbear such, or such a sin, and all occasions or means leading to it, and to perform such, or such duties, when he had opportunity, no father can discharge him from such vows.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
A husband may confirm a vow or annul it
The rash promise is a thoughtless word from the lips, and John Gill notes that such a word could still bind. It might be spoken with deliberation or on impulse. The vow travels with her into the marriage, and her new husband gets the day of hearing her father had. Adam Clarke gives the reason, that no one could vow away what belonged to another.
Numbers 30:6
“And if she had at all an husband with whom she vowed,.... Or "when her vows were upon her" (w), was either betrothed or married to a man: or uttered ought out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul; uttered anything, either with or without premeditation, either with thought and deliberation, or rashly and imprudently, as the word signifies, yet in such a manner that it was binding upon her. (w) ונדריה עליה.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 30:6
“Rather, And if she shall at all be an husband’s, and her vows shall be upon her, or a rash utterance of her lips, wherewith she hath bound her soul, etc. The “at all” intimates that the case of a girl betrothed but not yet actually married is here especially contemplated.”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the husband, like the father, had only a day to deliberate once he knew of the vow. John Gill reads his silence as consent, which leaves her bound to perform it. The limit protected the vow. A late objection could not quietly undo it, as verse 15 shows.
Numbers 30:7
“And her husband heard it, and held his peace at her in the day that he heard it,.... The vow she made, and by his silence consented to it: then her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand; or she be under obligation to perform them.”
Matthew Henry explains why absolution is still spoken. The vow bound her only by her own act, and no prior command of God stood behind it. Once her husband set it aside, keeping it would have meant defying him. Henry adds that she perhaps should have asked his consent first, and so needed the pardon.
Numbers 30:9-12
A widow and a divorced woman stand by their own word, and the rule is given with no reason. The daughter and the wife each have a head who may prohibit a vow, and these two have none, a difference the chapter names without explaining. Verses 10 to 12 return to the wife: her husband may void her vow on the day he hears of it or not at all.
Readers ask why verses 10 to 12 repeat the case of a wife. Matthew Henry reads them as a widow or divorced woman whose vow was made while her husband lived. If he had cancelled it then, it stayed cancelled. John Gill reports that the Targum of Jonathan takes her as betrothed, while Jarchi takes her as married.
Numbers 30:10
“And if she vowed in her husband's house,.... Before his death, in his lifetime, or before divorced: the Targum of Jonathan adds, by way of explanation, "and not at age for marriage", understanding it of a betrothed, and not a married person; but Jarchi says, the Scripture speaks of a married one, which seems most likely: or bound her soul by a bond with an oath; to fulfil her vow, to abstain from this, or to do that or the other thing.”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown give an example of the case. A wife might vow to give part of her income to pious uses once widowed, and then regret it when that day came. His silence in the marriage still bound her. They add that she had to keep the vow as far as her means allowed.
Matthew Henry notes that a vow cancelled in the marriage stayed void for ever. It did not return when she was widowed or sent away. Adam Clarke says that a woman bound by such a pledge had her very life at stake if she failed to keep it. The husband's word lifted that weight.
Numbers 30:12
“Concerning the bond of her soul - Her life is at stake if she fulfill not the obligation under which she has laid herself.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 30:13-16
A pledge "to deny herself" is the self-humbling that Leviticus 16:29 and 23:27 command on the day of atonement, so these vows include fasting. Verse 14 makes silence an act, since a husband who says nothing from day to day confirms her vows, and if he annuls them late "he will bear her iniquity". The closing verse holds the statute to two relationships, husband and wife, father and young daughter.
Numbers 30:13
“A promise to man is a bond upon the estate, but a promise to God is a bond upon the soul. Our sacramental vows, by which we are bound to no more than what was before our duty, and which neither father nor husband can disannul, are bonds upon the soul, and by them we must feel ourselves bound out from all sin and bound up to the whole will of God.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
John Gill reads from day to day as not one word on the day he heard and none the day after. To leave the vow uncontradicted was to confirm it. Matthew Henry puts the rule in an old legal maxim, that silence gives consent. The same principle governed the father at verse 4.
Numbers 30:14
“But if her husband altogether hold his peace at her from day today,.... Said not one word to her day after day, neither on the day he heard her vow, nor the day following: then he establisheth all her vows, or all her bonds, which are upon her; by his silence: he confirmeth them, because he held his peace at her, in the day that he heard them; for not to contradict them was to confirm them.”
Matthew Henry has in mind a vow that was good for God's honour and her own soul, overturned by a husband out of greed, whim or a wish to show his authority. She is released, yet he has much to answer for. John Wesley adds that the husband ought not to hinder a vow he has already allowed by his silence.
Numbers 30:15
“Now here it is very observable how carefully the divine law consults the good order of families, and preserves the power of superior relations, and the duty and reverence of inferiors.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
These are the statutes: Adam Clarke suspects the statute answered a case that had just arisen, as the law on daughters' inheritance did in chapter 27. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown likewise think it removed doubts that conscientious people had felt, following the mention of vows at 29:39. The chapter reads as a ruling on real cases.
Numbers 30:16
“These are the statutes - It is very probable that this law, like that concerning the succession of daughters, (Numbers 27)., rose from the exigency of some particular case that had just then occurred. Making vows, in almost any case, is a dangerous business; they seldom do any good, and often much evil. He who does not feel himself bound to do what is fit, right, and just, from the standing testimony of God’s word, is not likely to do it from any obligation he may lay upon his own conscience.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Case law, given to the heads of the tribes as the men who would judge such cases, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Four cases, one test | The chapter gives four situations in order. They are the man at verse 2 and the daughter in her father's house at verses 3 to 5. Then comes the woman who marries under a vow at verses 6 to 8, and the wife in her husband's house at verses 10 to 15. The widow and the divorced woman at verse 9 stand apart, bound by what they say. | Numbers 30:2, Numbers 30:3-5, Numbers 30:6-8, Numbers 30:9, Numbers 30:10-15 |
| Shall stand, and the LORD will absolve her | Two clauses carry every case. A vow left unchallenged shall stand, and a vow prohibited on the day it was heard is annulled with the words that the LORD will absolve her. They return at verses 4, 5, 7, 8, 11 and 12. | Numbers 30:4, Numbers 30:5, Numbers 30:7, Numbers 30:8, Numbers 30:11, Numbers 30:12 |
| Spoken to the heads of the tribes | Verse 1 names an audience the book rarely names. Moses speaks to the heads of the tribes rather than to the whole congregation, which marks the chapter as instruction for the men who would hear these cases and rule on them. | Numbers 30:1, Numbers 30:16 |
The vow and the bond
7 more paragraphs on the patterns
Albert Barnes separates the two words the chapter uses. A vow is positive and engages a person to dedicate something to God or to do some work for Him. A bond is negative and debars a person from some privilege or enjoyment. One is an obligation to do and the other an obligation to abstain.
Why the law was given
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain the rule from the cases it was meant to catch. People would often vow to do things that were beyond their power to perform. The law gave the head of the house the right to judge the propriety of such vows, with silence counting as approval.
The debated point
John Calvin raises a question the chapter leaves open. He notes the distinction the text draws between males and females, and conjectures that a boy of ten was bound by his own promises while still in his father's family. He states it as a probable conjecture and declines to contend for it.
The weight of a promise
Matthew Henry puts the difference between two kinds of promise in one line. A promise to man is a bond upon the estate, and a promise to God is a bond upon the soul.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Numbers 30:2; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Numbers 30:1 and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Numbers 30:2.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Gill; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry.