What Does Numbers 30:16 Mean?
These are the statutes which the LORD commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, between a father and his daughter in her youth, in her father's house.
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
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 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 you vow a vow to God, do not linger to make it whole. For there is no delight in the thick-headed. Make whole what you have vowed.Before all things, my brethren, do not swear, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no, lest you fall under judgment.THE THREAD
So give your servant a heart that hears and responds, to judge your people, so that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this heavy people of yours?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.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us