“Also, when a woman vows a vow to Yahweh and binds herself by a pledge, being in her father’s house, in her youth,
Not to violate an oath or vow made before God
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא יַחֵל דְּבָרוֹ כְּכָל־הַיֹּצֵא מִפִּיו יַעֲשֶׂה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעבור מה שחייבנו על עצמנו בדבור אע"פ שהוא בלא שבועה, וזהו הנדרים כמו שיאמר אדם כשיהיה כך או כשאעשה כך פירות העולם אסורין עלי או פירות מדינה זו או מאכל ידוע כגון שיאסור על היין או על הדגים או זולת זה, וכן אם יאמר הנאת אשתי אסורה עלי וכל מה שדומה לאלו הנדרים שהתבארו דיניהם בנדרים הרי הוא חייב לקיים אותו הנדר, ובאה האזהרה בעובר על הדבר הזה בפירוש אמרו לא יחל דברו ובא הפירוש לא יעשה דבריו חולין כלומר אם חייב על עצמו דבר שיקיים אותו. ובגמרא שבועות (דף כ':) אמרו קונמות עובר עליהם בלא תעשה משום לא יחל. ובספרי אמרו לא יחל מגיד שהוא עובר על בל יחל ועל בל תאחר, כלומר כשנדר קרבן ולא הקריבו ועברו עליו שלשה רגלים כסדרן הוא חייב משום בל תאחר ומשום בל יחל, וכן כל הדומה לקרבן כמו שידור לבדק הבית או לצדקה או לבית הכנסת והדומה לו. וכשעבר ועשה מה שאסר על עצמו לעשות לוקה. (ראשי המטות, הפלאה הלכות נדרים פ"א):
That He prohibited us from violating that which we have obligated ourselves with speech, even it is without an oath. And this is vows - such as when a person says, "When I will be such" - or "When I do such - the fruits of the world will be forbidden to me"; or "the fruits of this province"; or a particular food, such as if he forbids wine to himself or fish or anything else. And likewise if he said, "The pleasure of my wife is forbidden to me"; and anything that is similar to these vows - the laws of which are explained in Nedarim - he is certainly obligated to uphold that vow. And the prohibition about violating this thing, in the explanation [of the related commandment,] is His saying, "he may not profane his word" (Numbers 30:3). And the explanation comes (Sifrei Bamidbar 153:4): "He shall not make his word profane" - meaning, if he obligated himself something, he should fulfill it. And in the Gemara, Shevuot (Shevuot 20b), they said, "[Those that say something is], 'Like an offering (konamot),' will transgress a negative commandment with them, on account of, 'he may not profane.'" And in the Sifrei (Sifrei Bamidbar 153:4), they said, "'He may not profane' - is telling that he transgresses on account of, do not profane, and on account of, do not delay." Meaning, when he vowed a sacrifice and he did not offer it and three consecutive holidays passed him by, he is liable on account of, do not delay, and on account of, do not profane. And likewise with anything similar to a sacrifice, such as when he makes a vow tow the Temple maintenance [fund] or charity or to a synagogue and that which is similar to it. And if he transgressed, and did what he forbade to himself, he is lashed. (See Parashat Ki Tissa; Mishneh Torah, Festival Offering 1.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a flat, unconditional command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- CD 16:6-12 read it more strictly
- 11QTemple 53-54 The catalog describes this reception as: rewritten/harmonized expansion
Rabbinic aggadah
- Genesis Rabbah 70:1-3 expanded it homiletically
- Leviticus Rabbah 37:1-4 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.2-17 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.73 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Matthew 5:33-37 read it more strictly Jesus counsels swearing not at all, intensifying the discouragement of vow-making found in Ecclesiastes/Deuteronomy
- James 5:12 read it more strictly echoes the Matthean prohibition on oath-taking
- Acts 18:18 affirmed it Paul depicted fulfilling a vow involving hair-cutting; a Nazirite-style vow is the common but debated interpretation, and the affirmation is narrative/incidental rather than normative
The Church Fathers
- Origen, Commentary on Matthew, on Matt 5:33-37 read it spiritually
- John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 17 read it spiritually
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 5:89 carried a parallel
- Q 16:91 carried a parallel
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- neo assyrian vassal treaties oath-curse invoking divine enforcement for breach of sworn word Relationship to the parallel: shared formulary curse-series (lines 414ff. range) Parpola & Watanabe, SAA 2 (1988), no. 6
- neo assyrian vassal treaties self-activating divine curses attached to sworn oaths, with the god serving as autonomous enforcer of the breach — functionally identical to the Akkadian māmītu oath-curse and the logic underlying Numbers 30:3's profanation language Relationship to the parallel: shared formulary curse series (lines 414-493) Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (SAA 2, 1988)
- sefire treaties self-curse activated upon violation of the sworn covenant Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence Stele I A Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, 2nd ed. (1995)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The prescription of thirty-nine lashes (malkot) for violating a self-imposed religious vow or oath conflicts with the modern penal principle of proportionality; no post-Enlightenment legal system imposes corporal punishment for breach of a personal religious commitment, and many legal frameworks do not criminalize vow-violation at all.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Contemporary legal systems that address oath-breaking (typically in the context of perjury or contempt of court) do so through fines or custodial penalties; the method of judicial flogging prescribed for vow-violation is incompatible with post-Enlightenment prohibitions on cruel or degrading punishment.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the Sanhedrin's authority to impose malkot lapsed with the destruction of the Second Temple; the vow-violation lashes sanction is a de jure norm preserved in halakhic codes but without an operative enforcement body in any Jewish legal tradition since the first century CE.