Numbers 30:15

Summary

This verse describes the legal consequence when a husband annuls (rather than upholds) his wife's vow after having heard of it: he becomes the one who bears her guilt. The construction emphasizes the certainty or deliberateness of the annulling act itself.

Key words

• haFer / yaFer ("to break" / "he will break", H6565A) — an infinitive absolute followed by the same verb in the hiphil imperfect. This doubling is an emphatic construction in Biblical Hebrew, underscoring that the annulment is real, decisive, or certain — roughly "if he indeed annuls" rather than a hypothetical or partial act.
• 'im ("if", H0518A) — introduces the conditional clause that frames the entire verse as a legal case: the consequence described only applies under this specific circumstance.
• 'oTam ("them", H0853 + suffix) — the direct object marker with pronominal suffix, referring back to the vows or obligations mentioned earlier in the passage; it has no independent lexical meaning but signals what is being annulled.
• nasa' ("he will bear", H5375J) — a qal verb in sequential perfect form, continuing the narrative logic begun by the conditional clause: the result of his annulling act is that he now carries something.
• 'avonah ("her guilt", H5771G, construct + suffix) — a construct-state noun meaning "guilt" or "iniquity," bound to the pronominal suffix "her." The construct form ties the guilt specifically to the woman, even though the text states the husband is the one who bears it.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a conditional clause (ve'im...) followed by a consequence introduced by the sequential ve- on nasa'. The infinitive-plus-imperfect pairing on the verb "to break" (haFer yaFer) is a common Biblical Hebrew intensifying structure: it does not add a second action but reinforces the certainty of the single action of annulment. The clause 'acharei shom'o ("after his hearing," H0310A + H8085G) specifies timing — the annulment occurs only after the husband has already heard of the vow, which is the legally significant moment.

The consequence clause states that the husband "will bear" (nasa') "her guilt" ('avonah). The noun 'avonah is grammatically bound to the woman ("her guilt"), yet the verb's subject is the husband — the grammar itself encodes the transfer of legal responsibility from the woman to the man who annulled her vow after hearing it.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text describes a scenario of annulment (haFer yaFer, "he indeed breaks/annuls") followed by the husband bearing "her guilt." The LXX (Swete) instead describes a scenario of silence over multiple days ("if remaining silent he is silent to her day after day"), concluding that the vows and obligations are thereby established (στήσει, "he will establish"), not annulled. The Vulgate similarly renders the case as the husband "hearing and remaining silent," deferring judgment to another day, resulting in the vow being paid, "because as soon as he heard, he was silent." Both the LXX and Vulgate present a case of silence/delay leading to the vow's validity, whereas the Hebrew presents a case of active annulment leading to the husband bearing guilt — these are structurally different legal scenarios within the same verse position.