What Does Numbers 30:15 Mean?
But if he surely breaks them after he hears them, then he carries her crookedness.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But if he shall any ways make them void after that he hath heard them; then he shall bear her iniquity.THE KEY
The one who cancels a vow after hearing it does not erase its weight; he takes it onto himself.
THE MEANING
A promise can be overturned after you have heard it, but the authority to cancel does not make its weight disappear. The crookedness attached to the broken vow rests on the one who nullifies it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that authority to cancel a promise leaves the cost with the person who made it dissolves here: the one who overrides it bears the iniquity.
THE ROOT
וְנָשָׂא
venasa
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
Lift, carry, take up.
“carries” in this verse is venasa. The same root can name both carrying and what is carried as a burden. Here, the man who nullifies the vow takes up the liability attached to it.
ALSO GROWS
massa: A burden or load.
מַשָּׂא
The burden is what is taken up and carried, making the verse’s accountability feel weighty rather than abstract.
nose: One who carries; a bearer.
נֹשֵׂא
This form names the carrier, showing how the verse places the burden on the person who nullifies the vow.
עֲוֹנָהּ
avonah
GROWS FROM
עון
avon
Crookedness, with the guilt or liability that comes with it.
The word translated “iniquity” can also carry the sense of crookedness and its resulting liability. The verse links the act of nullifying the vow with a burden that the man himself must carry.
ALSO GROWS
avon: Crookedness, guilt, or the liability of wrongdoing.
עָוֹן
This is the underlying noun in the verse, giving “iniquity” the sense of a bent condition and its consequence.
avonot: Iniquities; the plural form of the same noun.
עֲוֹנוֹת
The plural form keeps the same link between crookedness and the liability it brings.
THE PATTERN
Hearing a binding word makes later action answerable: to undo it is to take up its consequence.
When you vow a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not linger to make it whole, for the LORD your God will surely seek it from you, and it would be a shortcoming in you.The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.For each one carries his own load.THE THREAD
And Cain said to the LORD, My crookedness is greater than can be lifted.“Bear” in both verses comes from the Hebrew root נשא (nasa), meaning to lift or carry. Cain names punishment as a weight he cannot carry; here, the man who nullifies the vow takes its liability onto himself.
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