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Numbers 30 · a question people ask

If her vow was forbidden, why does the LORD need to forgive her?

Interpretation

The verse gives its own reason: "The LORD will forgive her, because her father has forbidden her" (30:5). The chapter doesn't call her vow sin, and it doesn't say what is forgiven. Readers take it in two main ways. Some read it as the LORD covering a vow spoken to him and then left unkept: the chapter treats a spoken vow as binding (30:2); Deuteronomy says of a vow left unpaid, "the LORD your God will surely require it of you; and it would be sin in you" (Deuteronomy 23:21); and Numbers uses the same verb, salach, where what was done in error is forgiven: "they shall be forgiven; for it was an error" (15:25). Others read it as the LORD's assurance that she owes nothing: once forbidden, her vows "shall not stand" (30:12), and the verse names the reason as what her father did, "because her father has forbidden her" (30:5). Both readings agree on what the chapter says three times, that the LORD himself is the one who forgives: "The LORD will forgive her" (30:5, 30:8, 30:12).

The verses

“When a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”
Numbers 30:2 · World English Bible
“But if her father forbids her in the day that he hears, none of her vows or of her pledges with which she has bound her soul, shall stand. The LORD will forgive her, because her father has forbidden her.”
Numbers 30:5 · World English Bible
“But if her husband forbids her in the day that he hears it, then he makes void her vow which is on her and the rash utterance of her lips, with which she has bound her soul. The LORD will forgive her.”
Numbers 30:8 · World English Bible
“But if her husband made them null and void in the day that he heard them, then whatever proceeded out of her lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of her soul, shall not stand. Her husband has made them void. The LORD will forgive her.”
Numbers 30:12 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Numbers 30

Numbers 30: He shall not break his word

A vow was words that became a bond: "He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth" (30:2). For a daughter or a wife, the day her father or husband heard decided it, and silence said yes (30:14); if he forbade it, "The LORD will forgive her" (30:5). And Jesus took up the law of vows: "perform to the Lord your vows" (Matthew 5:33).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions