Numbers 30:2

Summary

Numbers 30:2 establishes the legal principle that a man who makes a vow (neder, H5088) to Yehovah or binds himself by an oath (shevu'ah, H7621) is obligated to fulfill exactly what he has spoken. The verse states that such a person may not violate his word and must act according to everything that came out of his mouth.

Key words

• yiddor ("he will vow", H5087) — qal imperfect, expressing a future/potential action: the conditional case being described.
• neder ("a vow", H5088) — masculine singular noun, the specific term for a votive promise made to Yehovah.
• hishava' ("he will swear", H7650) — niphal infinitive, a reflexive/passive verbal form indicating the act of binding oneself by oath.
• le'sor 'issar ("to bind an obligation", H0631/H0632) — infinitive + cognate noun construction, doubling the root idea of "binding" to intensify the sense of self-imposed restriction.
• yachel ("he will violate", H2490H) — hiphil imperfect, a causative form: the man would "cause profanation" of his own word if he fails to keep it.

What the text says

The verse opens with 'ish ("a man", H0376G) followed by the conditional particle ki ("if", H3588A), establishing a legal case format typical of this section of Numbers: "a man, if he vows... or swears...". Two parallel verbal constructions are joined by 'o ("or", H0176A): yiddor neder ("he will vow a vow") and hishava' shevu'ah ("he will swear an oath"), each pairing a finite verb with its cognate noun object — a common Hebrew intensifying pattern where the noun restates the verb's action.

The phrase le'sor 'issar 'al-nafsho ("to bind an obligation upon his soul/self") uses nafsho ("his self", H5315I with suffix H9023) in construct form, indicating that the obligation is imposed specifically upon the person's own being, not merely upon external action. The prohibition lo yachel devaro ("he will not violate his word") uses the hiphil of chalal (H2490H), a causative stem suggesting an active profaning or breaking, rather than a passive failure. The final clause, kekhol hayyotze mippiv ya'aseh ("according to all that has gone out from his mouth he shall do"), uses a qal participle (hayyotze, H3318O) to describe the utterance as something already "gone forth" — grammatically treating the spoken words as an accomplished object requiring subsequent action to match it.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate texts provided for this reference correspond to a different verse (Moses addressing the tribal leaders), while the Hebrew (TAHOT), RV1909, BSB, and SBLIBRE all render the legal content of the vow formula itself. This reflects a difference in versification between the Hebrew and Greek/Latin textual traditions at this point in Numbers 30, rather than a translation divergence within the same verse.