Numbers 30:15

15 But if he nullifies them some time after he has heard of them, then he shall bear her guilt.

Numbers 30:15 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 30:15

But if he shall any ways make them void, after that he hath
heard them
Some way or other expressing his dislike of them; not at the time he heard them, but some time afterwards; one day after, as the Targum of Jonathan:

then he shall bear his iniquity:
be accountable for the breach of the vow, the sin shall be reckoned to him, and he shall bear the punishment of it, because he ought to have declared is disapprobation of it sooner; and it may be, his doing it when he did was only in a spirit of contradiction, or through covetousness; and it would have been more advisable to have let the vow stand, and therefore acted a criminal part, and so was answerable for it; the Targum of Jonathan explains it,

``her husband or her father shall bear her iniquity,''

supposing her not to be at age: Aben Ezra gives the reason of it, because she is in his power.

Numbers 30:15 In-Context

13 Any vow or any binding oath to deny herself, her husband may allow to stand, or her husband may nullify.
14 But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he validates all her vows, or all her pledges, by which she is obligated; he has validated them, because he said nothing to her at the time that he heard of them.
15 But if he nullifies them some time after he has heard of them, then he shall bear her guilt.
16 These are the statutes that the Lord commanded Moses concerning a husband and his wife, and a father and his daughter while she is still young and in her father's house.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.