Numbers 30:12

Summary

The verse describes what happens if a husband nullifies (rather than confirms) his wife's vows on the day he learns of them: her vows and self-imposed obligations lose their force, and Yehovah grants her forgiveness. The Hebrew marks the husband's action as decisive and completed, while the consequence for the woman is stated as a divine act of pardon.

Key words

• haFer / yaFer ("to break" / "he will break", H6565A) — an infinitive followed by an imperfect of the same root, a construction that intensifies the verb, stressing that the husband does indeed annul the vow, not merely might.
• hafeRam ("he has broken them", H6565A) — same root now in the perfect, marking the annulment as a completed fact once stated, shifting from the conditional imperfect earlier in the verse to a confirmed outcome.
• yaKum ("it will stand", H6965I) — qal imperfect negated by lo' ("not", H3808), stating that the vow's legal force will not hold once broken.
• 'iSar naf.Shah ("the obligation of her soul/self", H0632 + H5315I) — construct chain naming a self-imposed restriction distinct from a formal vow (neder), both listed as nullified.
• yislach ("he will forgive", H5545) — qal imperfect with Yehovah as subject, describing the resulting act toward the woman after the husband's annulment.

What the text says

The verse opens with a conditional clause built on the doubled root hafer...yafer (H6565A), infinitive plus imperfect, a common Hebrew pattern for emphasis: the husband's act of breaking the vow is presented as certain, not merely possible, once he learns of it — marked by be-yom shom'o ("on the day of his hearing," H3117G + H8085G). The object of this annulment is described through a series of construct chains: "utterance of her lips" (motza sfateiha), "her vows" (nedareiha), and "the obligation of her soul" ('issar nafshah) — three overlapping ways of naming what she had spoken or bound herself to. The negated imperfect lo' yaqum ("it will not stand," H6965I) declares the legal outcome. The verse then repeats the husband's action, now in the perfect haferam ("he has broken them"), confirming the annulment as accomplished before introducing Yehovah's forgiving act, yislach (H5545), directed toward the woman with the preposition lah ("to/for her").

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text describes the husband annulling the vow (hafer yafer), with the consequence that the vows do not stand. The LXX and Vulgate given here instead describe the husband hearing and remaining silent, not objecting (LXX: παρασιωπήσῃ..., μὴ ἀνανεύσῃ; Vulgate: tacuerit, nec contradixerit), with the result that the vows do stand and she must fulfill them (LXX: στήσονται πᾶσαι αἱ εὐχαί; Vulgate: reddet quodcumque promiserat). The Hebrew ends with Yehovah's forgiveness (yislach), an element absent from the LXX and Vulgate text supplied.