Numbers 30:14

Summary

The verse addresses the case of a woman's vow or self-imposed obligation when her husband remains silent about it for an extended period ("from day to day"). Because he did not object on the day he learned of it, his silence legally confirms all her vows and binding obligations.

Key words

• ha.cha.Resh ("certainly [if] to be silent", H2790B) — infinitive absolute placed before the finite verb ya.cha.Rish to intensify the action: "if he indeed/certainly keeps silent."
• ya.cha.Rish ("he will keep silent", H2790B) — hiphil imperfect, same root as above, expressing ongoing or repeated inaction over time.
• mi.Yom 'el-Yom ("from day to day", H3117G) — idiomatic repetition of Yom ("day") marking duration, i.e., silence extended across multiple days.
• he.Kim ("he will confirm / he has confirmed", H6965I) — hiphil form appearing twice: first as a sequential (vav-consecutive) perfect continuing the narrative logic ("and so he confirms"), then as a plain perfect in the causal clause explaining why the confirmation stands.
• ki ("for/because", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the causal clause that justifies the confirmation: the husband's silence on the day he heard is the legal cause.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a doubled root construction — infinitive absolute ha.cha.Resh followed by the finite verb ya.cha.Rish — both from H2790B ("to be silent"). This grammatical pairing does not add new meaning but intensifies the certainty of the condition: the silence must be real and sustained, not accidental. This nuance of emphasis is difficult to render into English without paraphrase, which is why translations such as BSB simply state "if her husband says nothing."

The phrase mi.Yom 'el-Yom ("from day to day") stresses duration — silence maintained repeatedly, not just once. The verb he.Kim ("he confirms/has confirmed") appears twice with two different aspectual functions: first as a sequential perfect continuing the main clause ("and he confirms all her vows and obligations"), and second as a plain perfect within the explanatory ki clause ("he has confirmed them, because he kept silent on the day he heard"). This repetition ties the legal effect (confirmation) directly to the cause (silence on the day of hearing), a structure that Hebrew narrative syntax makes explicit through verb tense shifts rather than through added connecting words.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text of this verse concerns the husband's silence confirming the woman's vows. The LXX text supplied here speaks instead of "every vow and every oath of a bond to afflict the soul," stating that "her husband will establish for her, or her husband will remove," which corresponds more closely to material found in the surrounding verses (vow annulment) rather than to the specific silence-based confirmation described in this Hebrew verse. Likewise, the Vulgate text given ("Si voverit, et juramento se constrinxerit...") describes the woman making a vow and the husband's discretion "to do or not to do," differing from the Hebrew's focus on prolonged silence as the confirming act. These are presented as the versions in the source data, without indicating which one reflects the base text of this specific verse number.