Friday - Numbers 30 - An Authority Umbrella

Vows or promises to God are serious business. Now, this isn't the first time the issue has arisen in the writings of Moses. In fact, we dealt with them in an entry on Leviticus 27. As I said then, if you will compare all of the verses in the Bible that address this issue, you will find that vows, promises, oaths, pledges, and all such binding statements (that function as a form of swearing) are indeed permitted, but certainly not recommended. God is the only being who can absolutely live up to His commitments every time. With us, guarantees are always truly conditional and are actually always risky. Jesus basically pointed out that we have enough on our hands just trying to live up to the statements we make in passing without even considering contractual agreements (Matthew 5:37). Think about it, how many messes have we all gotten ourselves into by making deals that later turned out bad enough that we wished we could get out of them? Living without making vows simply makes for a life with fewer temptations.

Nevertheless, God gave Moses rules regarding the oaths that He knew people would be making. In summary, His law was that they had to live up to their word (Numbers 30:2). Now, He did insert a few loopholes" for His female followers. Seems strange to us in our "liberated" culture, I suppose, but God was truly being both merciful and wise by allowing for these exceptions. If a husband or a father overheard his wife or daughter make a vow to God, then he had the authority to immediately excuse her from fulfilling her vow. God generously agreed to forgive females in such cases despite the fact that they would not be fulfilling their word.

There was another effect of this exception though. The authority of the men in the Jewish culture was bolstered. God gave some of His own jurisdiction to them by allowing them to cancel these vows. Of course, by virtue of their broader experiences, the men in that culture would have been better equipped to judge the feasibility of fulfilling various commitments than perhaps the women in their households would have been.  In that way, it was simply practical to give them oversight in this arena.