What Does Numbers 30:13 Mean in the King James?
Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The binding oath is a bond, but this verse gives her husband the power to decide whether it holds.
THE MEANING
The verse puts before you a structure in which a woman’s vow is not finally her own: her husband may establish it or make it void. Her act of binding herself and his authority over that bond remain visible together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that her vow’s force belongs only to the woman who makes it.
THE ROOT
אִסָּר
issar
GROWS FROM
אסר
To bind, tie, or restrain.
The word translated “binding oath” carries the seed of binding and restraint. English can make “oath” sound like a solemn utterance; this root makes its force tangible as a bond that constrains, and the verse places the power to keep or cancel that bond with her husband.
ALSO GROWS
asur: Bound; forbidden.
אָסוּר
This same root describes what is bound or prohibited, showing how an oath can narrow what the speaker may do afterward.
asir: Captive; prisoner.
אֲסִיר
The root also names one held by bonds, making the oath’s restraint concrete rather than merely ceremonial.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats an oath as speech that creates an ongoing bond and obligation.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.THE THREAD
And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes.The verb אָסַר (ʾāsar, “to bind”) here shares its root with אִסָּר (issar, “binding oath”). Genesis shows a person physically bound; Numbers uses the same root for a vow whose force another person can confirm or annul.
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