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Numbers 30:6

in Numbers 30

If a woman marries while under a vow or rash promise by which she has bound herself,

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And if she be married to a husband, while her vows are upon her, or the rash utterance of her lips, wherewith she hath bound her soul,

KJV

And if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or uttered ought out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul;

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This verse in Numbers 30

Commentary

4 notes on this verse
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.

This site's exposition

If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord

on Numbers 30:3-8

One procedure is written out twice, once for a daughter in her father's house and once for a wife, and both turn on the phrase in the day that he heareth. The power to disallow lasts that day and then closes, so a vow left unchallenged past it stands. Where the father or the husband does disallow it, the text says the Lord shall forgive her, which treats the vow as a real debt remitted rather than as words that never counted. Barnes reads the at all of verse 6 as covering a girl betrothed but not yet married, and Gill allows either the betrothed or the married woman.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

The case supposed is that a person vows a vow unto the Lord, making God a party to the promise, and designing his honour and glory in it. The matter of the vow is supposed to be something lawful: no man can be by his own promise bound to do that which he is already by the divine precept prohibited from doing.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

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.

How the passage was read

On Numbers 30:1-16

On 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.”

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”)

The words behind it

13 Hebrew words

Every 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.

  • וְאִם־and if

    veim-H518 →1069 times

  • הָי֤וֹcertainly <to belong>

    hayoH1961 →3559 times

  • תִֽהְיֶה֙she will belong

    tihyehH1961 →3559 times

  • לְאִ֔ישׁto a husband

    leishH376 →1663 times

  • וּנְדָרֶ֖יהָand vows her

    unedareihaH5088 →60 times

  • עָלֶ֑יהָ[are] on her

    ʾaleihaH5921 →5755 times

  • א֚וֹor

    ʾoH176 →321 times

  • מִבְטָ֣א[the] rash utterance of

    mivta'H4008 →

  • שְׂפָתֶ֔יהָlips her

    sefateihaH8193 →176 times

  • אֲשֶׁ֥רwhich

    ʾasherH834 →5497 times

  • אָסְרָ֖הshe has bound

    ʾaserahH631 →72 times

  • עַל־on

    ʾal-H5921 →5755 times

  • נַפְשָֽׁהּ׃self her

    nafshahH5315 →754 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

2 in all, six open

The walk

5 stops

Each 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

    Psalms 56:12

    Your vows are upon me, O God; I will render thank offerings to You.

    it leads to

    • Psalms 9:1–3

      I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; I will recount all Your wonders.

    • 1 Samuel 1:24–28

      Once she had weaned him, Hannah took the boy with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. Though the boy was still young, she brought him…

    • Psalms 50:14

      Sacrifice a thank offering to God, and fulfill your vows to the Most High.

    • Psalms 119:106

      I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep Your righteous judgments.

    • Ecclesiastes 5:4–6

      When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it, because He takes no pleasure in fools. Fulfill your vow.

About Numbers

The Bronze Serpent, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
The Bronze Serpent, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Numbers: the study guide →Read Numbers 30 →

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Read on in Numbers 30 →