Numbers 30:8

Summary

Numbers 30:8 describes what happens when a woman's husband, on hearing of a vow she has made, forbids her from keeping it: his act annuls both the formal vow and the impulsive utterance of her lips, and Yehovah will forgive her for not fulfilling it.

Key words

• yani' ("he will forbid", H5106) — hiphil imperfect, a causative form indicating the husband actively produces the effect of prohibition; ongoing/future aspect ties the outcome to the moment he hears.
• hefer ("he will break", H6565A) — hiphil sequential perfect, causative "he causes to be broken/void"; grammatically it continues the narrative sequence begun by yani', presenting the annulment as the direct consequence of the forbidding.
• nidrah ("vow of her", H5088) — masculine singular construct with pronominal suffix, marking the formal vow as belonging specifically to her.
• mivta sefateiha ("rash utterance of her lips", H4008 + H8193G) — construct chain with dual noun "lips," designating a spoken commitment distinct from the formal neder, emphasizing spontaneous speech.
• yislach ("he will forgive", H5545) — qal imperfect, future/ongoing action attributed to Yehovah (H3068G) as subject, closing the clause with divine action rather than human.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional ('im, H0518A) clause followed by two consequential actions joined by the narrative vav (H9001): first the husband's forbidding (yani'), then, in sequence, his breaking/annulling (hefer) of what she had vowed. The Hebrew distinguishes two categories of speech-commitment: the neder ("vow," H5088), a formal category, and the mivta sefateiha ("rash utterance of her lips"), a spontaneous verbal binding — both are grammatically objects marked by the untranslated direct-object particle 'et (H0853), showing they are treated as parallel but distinct legal objects of the husband's annulling action. The final clause shifts subject to Yehovah, whose imperfect verb yislach extends the resolution beyond the human legal transaction into a divine forgiving act, syntactically separate from the husband's action via the conjunction vav (H9002).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew condition centers on the husband forbidding (yani') the vow, producing annulment and forgiveness. The LXX instead describes the husband hearing and remaining silent (παρασιωπήσῃ), with the result that "all her vows... shall stand" (στήσονται) — an opposite outcome. The Vulgate similarly reads "et non contradixerit" ("and did not contradict"), concluding she becomes "rea" ("liable") for the vow and must fulfill her promise. The BSB, RV1909, and SBLIBRE renderings align with the Hebrew's "forbids/annuls" sense, while the LXX and Vulgate as given here describe the husband's non-objection leading to the vow's validity rather than its nullification.