Numbers 30:13
Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow or any sworn pledge to deny herself.
Sermons
The Head of the Household Honoured and CautionedD. Young Numbers 30:3-16














The command contained in this section of the chapter secures a double result.

1. By specifying certain exceptions to the validity of the vow, it makes that validity all the more manifest where the exceptions do not obtain. Stating exceptions to a rule is only another way of stating the rule itself.

2. These exceptions relate to the interests of the household, to the preservation of its integrity, and, to this end, of the rights and authority of the person whom God has placed at its head. Moreover, that which secures the right of the father and the husband equally secures the interests of the daughter and the wife. Consider -

I. WHAT THIS COMMAND IMPLIED WITH RESPECT TO THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD. Let us take the relation of the father and daughter, similar things being true, mutatis mutandis, with respect to the husband and wife.

1. This command honoured parental authority. God had laid a solemn injunction on children to honour father and mother, and we see here how careful he was to honour the parental relation himself. He puts everything in the shape of a vow, everything which the daughter was otherwise free to choose, under the father's control He requires no reason to be given; the simple veto is enough, if only it be uttered at the appointed time. The father had a responsibility which the daughter had not, and it was fitting that God should give the father all possible help in meeting that responsibility.

2. This command required much watchfulness on the part of the father. To act rightly here demanded the whole compass of paternal duty. The father was not allowed to say that his daughter's vow was no business of his. He himself might not be a vowing sort of person, and therefore under no temptation to neglect a vow he was not likely to make. But even if indifferent to vows himself, he was bound to be interested in his daughter's welfare, and do his best to keep her from future difficulties. Her limited life hid many difficulties from her eyes. It was not for a father to expose himself in later days to reproach from the lips of his own daughter. It was not for him to run the risk of hearing her say, "Why did not your larger knowledge and experience shelter me from difficulties which my inexperience could not possibly anticipate?"

3. This command required much consideration on the part of the father. He must not let the vow pass without notice, and when he noticed it must be with proper consideration. While it was within his right to stop the vow, he might in stopping it be doing a very unfatherly thing, a thing very hurtful to the religious life of his daughter. As God had honoured him and undertaken to help him in his fatherly relation, he must honour that relation himself. That relation from which God expects so much must be prepared to yield much in the way of care and consideration. The father may think too much of his own wishes, too little of his daughter's needs, and too little of the will of God. The vow of the daughter might be a rightful, helpful, and exemplary one, a vow of the Nazarite indeed (Numbers 6:2). It was not enough, therefore, for the father to fall back on the mere assertion of authority. It is a serious thing to offend one of the little ones - a serious thing for any one to do; but how unspeakably serious when the hand which casts down the stumbling-block is that of a father!

4. This command required, in order to be fully complied with, sympathy with the voluntary spirit in religion. A father who felt that the services of religion consisted chiefly in exact external conformity with certain rules for worship and conduct would be very likely to stop his daughter's vow as mere whimsicality. But religion must go beyond obedience to verbal commands; it must aim at something more than can be put into even the most exact and expressive of them. Commands are nothing more than finger-posts; and the joys of hope and preparation during the journey are directed towards something lying beyond the last of the finger-posts, The father who would act rightly by all possible wishes of his children must be one who comprehends that experience of John: "We love him because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). He must be one who feels that love can never be satisfied with mere beaten tracks and conventional grooves. He must be such a one as appreciates the act of the woman who poured the precious ointment on the head of Jesus. If he be a man of the Judas spirit, grudging what he reckons waste, he is sure to go wrong. He will check his children when he ought to encourage them, and encourage when he ought to check. If God opens their eyes he will do his best to close them again, so that the blind father may go on leading the blind children, till at last both fall into the pit.

II. WHAT THIS COMMAND IMPLIED WITH RESPECT TO THE DAUGHTER AND THE WIFE.

1. Their right to make a vow was itself secured. The command did not say that daughter and wife were to make no vow at all. They were as free to make a vow at any man in all Israel; and if it had not been for more important considerations connected with the household, they would also have been free to keep the vow. God would have us to understand that inferior and mutilated duties or privileges are no necessary consequence of a subordinate position.

2. A gentle and patient submission was recommended on the part of the daughter and the wife. The right to propose the vow being secured to every woman, it was no fault of hers, and would be counted no blame, if the father or husband cancelled it. The Nazarite vow might be thwarted in the very freshness of it, but the spirit of zeal which produced it needed not to grow languid. We cannot be hindered in the attainment of any good, save by our own negligence. God will meet us amid all restraints which untoward circumstances may impose upon us. The claims rising out of natural relations and the present needs of human society are imperative while they last, and must be respected. But they will not last for ever. "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Matthew 22:30). - Y.

These shall pitch on the side of the tabernacle.
In this division we see more particularly that which was in part noted before, namely, the several situations that these Levites had about the tabernacle, which they compassed round about that they might not be far from any of the people of God, but always resident among them. This teacheth us that God will have every part of His people taught. None are too high in regard of their great places; none are too low in regard of their obscure callings; none are too good to be taught, whatsoever their degrees be. This will be made plain by divers reasons.

1. Consider the titles that are given unto God in the Scriptures. He is worthily called the King of His Church, and the Lord and Master of His house. Is not He "the Shepherd of Israel that leadeth Josephlike sheep"? (Psalm 80:1). Will a shepherd that hath any care of his sheep, or any love unto them, look unto some of them and not to all? Will a king regard only the chief cities and most populous places of his kingdom, and suffer the rest to live as they list, without laws and good orders? Or will the master of a house look to some in his family, and not to all?

2. Such is the grace and goodness of God, that He would have all His people come to knowledge. Such as know not His will are none of His servants. If then He require the understanding of His ways, not only of rich men, of great men, of learned men, and of the ministers, but of all the people, we must hereof conclude that He hath ordained that all of them should have the means of knowledge and salvation offered unto them, and published among them.

3. The Word of God was penned for all estates, degrees, and conditions of men.

4. All persons, whatsoever they be, have souls to save: simple persons, small congregations, little assemblies, as well as others that ale many in number.Uses:

1. It is God's ordinance that every congregation should have a learned minister to teach them the true religion and fear of God.

2. It is required of the ministers of the Gospel, whom the Holy Ghost hath made overseers of their several flocks, to look to their whole charge from one corner of it to another. They are to give an account for every soul that dies through their ignorance or through their negligence.

3. We have warrant from hence to desire most earnestly that the kingdom of God may flourish everywhere. Christ our Saviour teaches us to pray that His kingdom may come (Matthew 6:10), and so to be erected in the hearts of men.

4. This doctrine serveth as an instruction to all magistrates (as their places serve them) to further the preaching of the Word, and to furnish such places as belong unto them with able teachers.

(W. Attersoll.).

People
Moses
Places
Jericho
Topics
Afflict, Annul, Binding, Bond, Break, Broken, Confirm, Deny, Establish, Gives, Herself, Humble, Husband, Makes, Nullify, Oath, Pleasure, Pledge, Soul, Stand, Supported, Sworn, Undertaking, Void, Vow
Outline
1. Vows are not to be broken
3. The exceptions of a maid's vows
6. Of a wife's
9. Of a widow's or her that is divorced

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Numbers 30:1-16

     5468   promises, human

Numbers 30:2-15

     5444   pledges

Numbers 30:2-16

     5329   guarantee

Library
Covenanting Confers Obligation.
As it has been shown that all duty, and that alone, ought to be vowed to God in covenant, it is manifest that what is lawfully engaged to in swearing by the name of God is enjoined in the moral law, and, because of the authority of that law, ought to be performed as a duty. But it is now to be proved that what is promised to God by vow or oath, ought to be performed also because of the act of Covenanting. The performance of that exercise is commanded, and the same law which enjoins that the duties
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

"And the Redeemer Shall Come unto Zion, and unto them that Turn,"
Isaiah lix. 20.--"And the Redeemer shall come unto Zion, and unto them that turn," &c. Doctrines, as things, have their seasons and times. Every thing is beautiful in its season. So there is no word of truth, but it hath a season and time in which it is beautiful. And indeed that is a great part of wisdom, to bring forth everything in its season, to discern when and where, and to whom it is pertinent and edifying, to speak such and such truths. But there is one doctrine that is never out of season,
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Nature of Covenanting.
A covenant is a mutual voluntary compact between two parties on given terms or conditions. It may be made between superiors and inferiors, or between equals. The sentiment that a covenant can be made only between parties respectively independent of one another is inconsistent with the testimony of Scripture. Parties to covenants in a great variety of relative circumstances, are there introduced. There, covenant relations among men are represented as obtaining not merely between nation and nation,
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Numbers
Like the last part of Exodus, and the whole of Leviticus, the first part of Numbers, i.-x. 28--so called,[1] rather inappropriately, from the census in i., iii., (iv.), xxvi.--is unmistakably priestly in its interests and language. Beginning with a census of the men of war (i.) and the order of the camp (ii.), it devotes specific attention to the Levites, their numbers and duties (iii., iv.). Then follow laws for the exclusion of the unclean, v. 1-4, for determining the manner and amount of restitution
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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