[Hmmmm, just thinking . . . a whole chapter devoted to vows included in the Torah. Vow-making and vow-breaking must have been a problem in those days so that it had to be regulated. What vows do people make today?
I know of a Catholic friend whose faith in God includes making such vows in exchange for favors asked and guess what? I have yet to hear of a prayer not granted. What does she offer in exchange? Mostly self-denial from food indulgences — no dessert for a month, no coke for a week, fasting from favorite foods — all of which gives her an added benefit of losing weight! I’ve often wondered why God grants her requests while my few and far between supplications have remained unrequited, so much so I don’t bargain with God any more . . . which is fine because according to Judaism, Scripture discourages vowing.
On second thought, perhaps I did not fulfill my vows as perfectly as my Catholic friend did hers. Oh well . . . .please read the ‘VOWS AND VOWING IN THE LIGHT OF JUDAISM’ at the end of this chapter.
Commentary is from Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; translation isEF/Everett Fox The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1]
CONCERNING VOWS
This chapter emphasizes the solemnity and binding character of religious vows, and in what circumstances vows of women can be annulled by the father or husband.
Numbers/Bamidbar 30
2-3. SACREDNESS OF VOWS.
2 Now Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes of the Children of Israel, saying: This is the word that YHVH has commanded:3 (Any) man who vows a vow to YHVH or swears a sworn-oath, to bind himself by a binding-obligation: he is not to desecrate his word, according to all that goes out of his mouth, he is to do.
he is not to desecrate his word,
according to all that goes out of his mouth, he is to do.voweth a vow. Heb. neder; denotes a solemn promise to consecrate something to God, or do something in His service or His honour. A vow was usually made in a time of distress, and its motive was the desire to secure Divine help; Gen. XXVIII,20-22. Or it might be an expression of gratitude for Divine aid received. ‘The manifest emotion with which many a singer in the Psalter records his gratitude to God as he pays his vows, shows that they must often have represented a warm and genuine religious experience’ (McFadyen).
a bond. Heb. issar. In contrast to neder, this may be called a negative vow: a self-imposed pledge to abstain from doing or enjoying something that is perfectly allowable.
break his word. lit. ‘profane his word’. The violation of a vow or ‘bond’ is at once an offence before God, and an act of profanation of man’s personality.
according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. There is a tendency in human nature to forget in health and security the vows that were made in sickness and danger; but the rule remains,, Whatever a man has promised unto God, that he must fulfill.
4-6. VOWS OF A YOUNG UNMARRIED WOMAN
After laying down the general principle, Scripture proceeds to qualify it in three special cases of vows made by women under authority: viz. (a) women before marriage; (b) married women; (c) women after marriage, i.e. widows and divorced women.
4 And a woman, when she vows a vow to YHVH or binds (herself) by a binding-obligation in her father’s house, in her youth,in her youth. A young unmarried woman still under her father’s guardianship; i.e., till the age of adolescence.
holdeth his peace. The father’s silence amounts to a ratification of the vow.
6 Now if her father constrains her at the time that he hears it, all her vows and her binding-obligations by which she binds herself shall not be upheld, and YHVH will grant-her-pardon, for her father has constrained her.disallow her. If the father verbally disapproves of her vow on the day he hears of it, such disapproval amounts to a veto and the vow becomes annulled; see v. 13.
7-9. CASE OF A MARRIED WOMAN WHO MADE THE VOW WHILST SINGLE
7 But if she becomes-married, becomes-married to a man while her vows are upon her, or the rash-statement of her lips by which she has bound herself,
Image from rhr.org
while her vows are upon her. This is the second of the three afore-mentioned cases; viz. the vow of a woman who marries whilst under a vow made by her before marriage, whether during the stage of adolescence and with the requisite approval of the father, or when she was a full-grown woman and outside the range of her father’s veto.
and hold his peace. As in v. 5.
9 Now if at the time that her husband hears, he constrains her, he annulls her vow that is upon her as well as the rash-statement of her lips by which she has bound herself, and YHVH will grant-her-pardon.disallow her. By verbal disapproval, as in v. 6.
10-16. VOWS OF A WIDOW AND DIVORCED WOMAN
10 Now the vow of a widow or a divorcée, anything by which she has bound herself, shall be upheld regarding her.widow, or . . . divorced. The vows of such women are fully binding. They fall under the general principle in v. 3.
in her husband’s house. In this instance, the husband has the same authority to allow or disallow the vow, as the father had in regard to his young adolescent daughter.
12 and her husband heard, and was silent to her, not constraining her, all her vows, they shall be upheld, and all the binding-obligations by which she bound herself shall be upheld.13 But if her husband annulled, yes, annulled them at the time of his hearing it, all that went out of her lips as her vows, as her binding of herself- it shall not be upheld, her husband has annulled them, and YHVH will grant-her-pardon.
will forgive her. As it was no fault of hers, if the husband or father cancelled her vow.
14 Every vow and every sworn binding, for afflicting her self: her husband may uphold, her husband may annul it.to afflict the soul. By fasting or any kind of abstinence.
15 But if her husband is silent, yes, silent to her, from (one) day to the (next) day, (then) he has upheld all her vows and all her binding-obligations that are upon her, he has them upheld, since he was silent to her at the time of his hearing it.16 Now if he annuls, yes, annuls it after his hearing it, he shall bear her iniquity.
he shall bear her iniquity. If the husband tacitly consented to the vow in the first instance, and afterwards forbade her to fulfil it, then the guilt rests upon him.
17 These are the laws that YHVH commanded Moshe between a man and his wife, between a father and his daughter in her youth, (in) the house of her father.————————————————————-
VOWS AND VOWING IN THE LIGHT OF JUDAISM
The Rabbis fully endorsed the Biblical demand for man uncompromisingly to honour his word, whether accompanied by a vow or not. Their position on this matter is absolutely clear: ‘Let thy yea be yea, and thy nay be nay. He who changes his word commits as heavy a sin as he who worships idols; and he who utters an untruth, is excluded from the Divine Presence.’
A vow to be valid must be uttered aloud; it must be made voluntarily, without any compulsion from without; and the person making it must be fully conscious of its scope and implications. A man may impose a restriction upon himself by vow; he cannot so restrict others. Vows whose fulfillment is rendered impossible by force majeure are void.
Scripture discourages vowing. ‘If thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee’ (Deut. XXIII,23): ‘Be not rash with thy mouth . . . Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay‘ (Eccl.V,1,4). The post-Biblical teachers, whether in Alexandria, Palestine, or Babylon, shared this attitude towards vows. Philo declares: ‘The word of the good man should be his oath, firm and unchangeable, founded steadfastly in truth. Therefore vow and oaths should be superfluous. Some men make vows out of wicked hatred of their fellow men; swearing, for example, that they will not admit this or that man to sit at the same table with them, or to come under the same roof. Such men should seek to propitiate the mercy of God, so that they may find some cure for the diseases of their souls.’ The Rabbis were equally zealous in their attempt to dissuade men from vowing. ‘Do not form a habit of making vows,’ was an ancient Tannaite teaching; while Samuel, the great teacher in Babylon, roundly declared: ‘He who makes a vow, even though he fulfil it, is called a rosho, a wicked man.’ In the time of the Mishnah, the habit of taking vows was considered a sign of bad breeding, and affected the honour of the vower’s parents, just as swearing would nowadays point to a man’s low origin. One exception was admitted. The making of vows ws tolerated, when it was done in order to rid oneself of bad habits, or in order to encourage oneself to do good; but—says the Shulchan Aruch—even in such cases one should strive for the desired end without the aid of vows. ‘Even vows for charitable purposes are not desirable. If one has the money, let him give it straightway without a vow; and if not, let him defer his vow until he have it.’
The fact must, however, be recorded that the mass of the people did not rise to these moral heights, and the popular Oriental passion for vow-making continued unabated. And just because the Rabbis assigned such sacredness to the spoken word, they were faced with a grave problem. For altogether aside from imbecile and rash minds, men in time of danger or under momentary impulse would make vows which they could not fulfil. These self-imposed obligations or abstentions might clash with man’s domestic duties, or interfere with his proper relations to his neighbours. In such cases, the Rabbis would consider it their duty to afford a man the facility, under certain definite conditions and restrictions, of annulling his thoughtless or impossible vows. Such annulment could never be effected by himself, but only by a Beth Din of three learned men in Law, after they had carefully investigated the nature and bearing of the vow, and had become convinced that its purpose was not, on the one hand, self-improvement; nor did it, on the other, infringe upon the rights of others. For not all vows or oaths could be absolved. A vow or oath that was made to another person, even be that person a child or a heathen, could not be annulled except in the presence of that person and with his consent; while an oath which a man had taken in a court of justice could not be absolved by any other authority in the world. Far from being animated by a loose regard for morality, the annulment of vows ordained by the Rabbis has an ethical intent, that of saving persons who have made virtually impracticable vows from the guilt of breaking them, and of preventing the hardship and injustice which their fulfilment would entail upon others (Z. Frankel, Schechter).