What Does Numbers 30:16 Mean in the King James?
These are the statutes, which the LORD commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, being yet in her youth in her father’s house.
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 repeated “between” makes the household bond the boundary through which a woman’s vow is governed.
THE MEANING
This verse places the rules for a woman’s vow within two household relationships: wife and husband, and a young daughter and her father. For the daughter, it names both her youth and her father’s house as part of that boundary. The text makes her vow’s standing relational, shaped by the authority held within those bonds.
THE ROOT
בֵּין
bên
GROWS FROM
בין
To discern or distinguish; the preposition בֵּין means “between.”
English presents “between” as a marker of location, while this Hebrew root also carries the sense of understanding through discernment. Repeated twice, it makes the distinctions between household members central to how the vow is governed.
ALSO GROWS
bîn: To discern, understand
בִּין
The verb shares the root behind “between,” linking distinction with understanding.
bînāh: Understanding, discernment
בִּינָה
This noun shows the root’s movement from marking a distinction to perceiving one.
הַחֻקִּים
haḥuqqîm
GROWS FROM
חקק
To mark or carve; by extension, to establish a fixed decree or prescription.
The word for “statutes” belongs to a root associated with marking something out and establishing it as fixed. Alongside the repeated “between,” it presents a rule whose boundaries are drawn around specific household relationships.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōq: A statute, prescribed limit, or portion
חֹק
This related noun carries the sense of a set measure or decree.
meḥōqēq: A lawgiver, one who decrees
מְחֹקֵק
This branch shows the same root describing the one who establishes a rule.
THE PATTERN
Words pledged under oath create obligations that remain accountable beyond the moment they are spoken.
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
Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?The Hebrew verb for “understand” and the phrase “between good and bad” share the ב־י־ן root family behind בֵּין, “between.” Numbers uses that family to mark the household relations in which a vow is governed; here, it connects discernment with seeing distinctions.
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