Numbers 30:9
in Numbers 30Every vow a widow or divorced woman pledges to fulfill is binding on her.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
But the vow of a widow, or of her that is divorced, even everything wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand against her.
KJV
But every vow of a widow, and of her that is divorced, wherewith they have bound their souls, shall stand against her.
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This verse in Numbers 30
Commentary
5 notes on this verseThis site's exposition
But every vow of a widow, and of her that is divorced
on Numbers 30:9-12
A widow and a divorced woman stand by their own word, and the rule is given flat with no reason attached to it. The daughter and the wife each have a head who may hear a vow and disallow it, and these two women have none, which is the difference the chapter names and does not explain. Verses 10 to 12 go back to the wife who vowed under her husband's roof and repeat the same limit, that his voiding of it falls on the day he heard it or not at all.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
), it is at her peril if she run back; but a wife, who has nothing that she can strictly call her own, but with her husband's allowance, cannot, without that, make any such vow. The law is plain in case of a wife that continues so long after the vow.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
), yet if the vow was made while she was in the house of her husband, and her husband disallowed it, it was made void and of no effect for ever, and she does not return under the law of her vow when she is loosed from the law of her husband.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
But every vow of a widow,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
every vow of a widow--In the case of a married woman, who, in the event of a separation from her husband, or of his death, returned, as was not uncommon, to her father's house, a doubt might have been entertained whether she was not, as before, subject to paternal jurisdiction and obliged to act with the paternal consent.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase
How the passage was read
On Numbers 30:1-16On Numbers 30:1-16
Vows, oaths, and the words that bind
This chapter is the Torah's law of vows: “he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.” The tradition distinguished the neder, a vow that makes a thing forbidden or dedicated (“this property is korban,” that is, an offering, barred from ordinary use as if given to God), from the shevuah, an oath that binds the person to do or not do something. Around both grew a careful case law: the Mishnah records the substitute formulas people used for korban (konam, konach, konas, Nedarim 1:2), and the tradition itself admitted how far this law outran its text: the rules for releasing vows “fly in the air and have nothing to support them” (Chagigah 1:8).
Two Gospel collisions stand on this chapter. The korban vow that could lock a son's goods away from his own parents is what Jesus confronts in Mark 7:11. And the oath casuistry He attacks in Matthew 5:33-37 and 23:16-22 grew from the practice of swearing by substitutes (heaven, earth, Jerusalem, the Temple) to avoid God's name; the Mishnah itself records that one who administers an oath “in the name of heaven and in the name of earth” leaves the swearer exempt (Shevuot 4:13), exactly the graded-honesty loophole Jesus abolishes with “let your yes be yes.”
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
The vow of a widow or a divorced woman—everything she prohibited for herself shall remain incumbent upon her.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Sources: Mishnah Nedarim 1:2 (the korban substitute formulas) · Mishnah Shevuot 4:13 (an oath by heaven and earth does not bind) · Mishnah Chagigah 1:8 (vow-release “flies in the air”)
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 3 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
10 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וְנֵ֥דֶר | veneder | and [the] vow of | H5088 → | 60 times |
| אַלְמָנָ֖ה | ʾalmanah | a widow | H490 → | |
| וּגְרוּשָׁ֑ה | ugerushah | and a divorced [woman] | H1644 → | 46 times |
| כֹּ֛ל | kol | all | H3605 → | 5413 times |
| אֲשֶׁר־ | ʾasher- | that | H834 → | 5497 times |
| אָסְרָ֥ה | ʾaserah | she has bound | H631 → | 72 times |
| עַל־ | ʾal- | on | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| נַפְשָׁ֖הּ | nafshah | self her | H5315 → | 754 times |
| יָק֥וּם | yakum | it will stand | H6965 → | 628 times |
| עָלֶֽיהָ׃ | ʾaleiha | on her | H5921 → | 5755 times |
וְנֵ֥דֶרand [the] vow of
venederH5088 →60 times
אַלְמָנָ֖הa widow
ʾalmanahH490 →
וּגְרוּשָׁ֑הand a divorced [woman]
ugerushahH1644 →46 times
כֹּ֛לall
kolH3605 →5413 times
אֲשֶׁר־that
ʾasher-H834 →5497 times
אָסְרָ֥הshe has bound
ʾaserahH631 →72 times
עַל־on
ʾal-H5921 →5755 times
נַפְשָׁ֖הּself her
nafshahH5315 →754 times
יָק֥וּםit will stand
yakumH6965 →628 times
עָלֶֽיהָ׃on her
ʾaleihaH5921 →5755 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Romans 7:2For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
it leads to
- Genesis 2:23–24
And the man said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man she was taken.”
- 1 Corinthians 7:4
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.
- 1 Corinthians 7:39
A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, as long as he belongs to the Lord.
- Genesis 2:23–24
Through
Luke 2:37and then was a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
it leads to
- 1 Timothy 5:5
The widow who is truly in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day in her petitions and prayers.
- Psalms 23:6
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
- Acts 14:23
Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church, praying and fasting as they entrusted them to the Lord, in whom they had believed.
- Acts 13:3
And after they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
- 1 Timothy 5:5
Through
Leviticus 21:7A priest must not marry a woman defiled by prostitution or divorced by her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.
it leads to
- Leviticus 21:13–14
The woman he marries must be a virgin.
- Leviticus 21:13–14
About Numbers
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.