Regulation for Vows
Numbers 30Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying, “This is the thing which YHWH has commanded. When a man vows a vow to YHWH, or swears an oath to bind his soul with a bond of obligation, he must not break his word. He must do everything that proceeds from his mouth.
“Also, when a woman vows a vow to YHWH and binds herself by a pledge, being in her father’s house, in her youth, and her father hears her vow and her pledge by which she has bound her soul, and her father says nothing to her, then all her vows will stand, and every pledge by which she has bound her soul will stand. But if her father forbids her in the day that he hears, none of her vows or of her pledges by which she has bound her soul, will stand. YHWH will forgive her, because her father has forbidden her.
“If she marries-marries a husband while under a vow or after her lips make a rash utterance that binds her soul, and her husband hears it, and says nothing to her on the day he hears it, then her vows will stand, and her pledges that she has bound her soul will stand. 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. YHWH will forgive her.
“But the vow of a widow or a divorced woman, everything by which she has bound her soul, will be binding on her.
“If she vowed in her husband’s house or bound her soul by a bond with an oath, and her husband heard it, and held his peace at her and didn’t disallow her, then all her vows will stand, and every pledge by which she bound her soul will stand. But if her husband nulls-nulls them on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded out of her lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of her soul, will not stand. Her husband has nulled them. YHWH will forgive her. Any vow or binding oath that afflicts the soul, her husband may establish it or nullify it. But if her husband is silent-silent to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows or all her pledges which are on her. He has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day he heard them. But if he nulls-nulls them and void after he has heard them, then he will bear her guilt.”
These are the statutes which YHWH commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, between a father and his daughter, being in her youth, in her father’s house.