Numbers 30:3

3 If a woman, being young and under the authority of her father, takes an oath to the Lord or gives an undertaking;

Numbers 30:3 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 30:3

If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord
Who has not passed thirteen years, as the Targum of Jonathan:

[and] bind [herself] by a bond;
lay herself under obligation to perform her vow by an oath: being in her father's house; unto the twelfth year, as the same Targum; that is, that is under his care, tuition, and jurisdiction, whether she literally, or properly speaking, is in the house or no at the time she vows; so Jarchi interprets it of her being in the power of her father, though not in his house, she being not at age to be at her own disposal, but at his: wherefore it is added,

in her youth;
which, as the same writer explains it, signifies that she is

``neither a little one, nor at age; for a little one's vow is no vow, and one at age is not in the power of her father to make void her vow: who is a little one? our Rabbins say, one of eleven years of age and one day, her vows are examined, whether she knows on whose account she vows and consecrates, or devotes anything; one vows a vow that is twelve years and one day old, there is no need to examine them.''

He seems to refer to a passage in the Misnah ^F20,

``a daughter of eleven years and one day, her vows are examined; a daughter of twelve years and one day, her vows are firm, but they are to be examined through the whole twelfth year.''

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 Niddah, c. 5. sect. 6.

Numbers 30:3 In-Context

1 And Moses said to the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, This is the order of the Lord.

2 When a man takes an oath to the Lord, or gives an undertaking having the force of an oath, let him not go back from his word, but let him do whatever he has said he will do.

3 If a woman, being young and under the authority of her father, takes an oath to the Lord or gives an undertaking;

4 If her father, hearing of her oath or the undertaking she has given, says nothing to her, then all her oaths and every undertaking she has given will have force.

5 But if her father, hearing of it, makes her take back her word, then the oaths or the undertakings she has given will have no force; and she will have forgiveness from the Lord, because her oath was broken by her father.