Numbers 30:15

15 (30-16) But if he gainsay it after that he knew it, he shall bear her iniquity.

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 (30-14) If she vow and bind herself by oath, to afflict her soul by fasting, or abstinence from other things, it shall depend on the will of her husband, whether she shall do it, or not do it.

14 (30-15) But if the husband hearing it hold his peace, and defer the declaring his mind till another day: whatsoever she had vowed and promised, she shall fulfil: because immediately as he heard it, he held his peace.

15 (30-16) But if he gainsay it after that he knew it, he shall bear her iniquity.

16 (30-17) These are the laws which the Lord appointed to Moses between the husband and the wife, between the father and the daughter that is as yet but a girl in age, or that abideth in her father’s house.