Numbers 30:2: “If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.”
There is really no word in the Classical Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew) for a promise. If a word is rendered as promise in English it is usually from the Hebrew word ‘amar or debar which are simply words for speaking. In English we make a difference between a promise and a vow. We have two entirely different words. However many just assume these words are synonymous but by our English definition they are not. Webster defines a vow as a solemn promise, pledge or personal commitment. A promise on the other hand is defined by Webster as a declaration that something will or will not be done, given etc.
For most of us the only vow we would take would be marriage vows. These are performed in a ceremony before witnesses and can only be broken through a legal action, divorce. However, vows are made every day only we call them contracts. A promise can be broken often without any legal action or consequence other than to one’s reputation and standing with another. Common law used to carry a breach of promise tort action also known as the breach of contract to marry and the remedy that was awarded was known as heart balm. However, this again hinged on whether a legal contract had been made. The breach of promise tort has been abolished in most jurisdictions, the last being in England in 1971. For this reason in 21st Century English the word vow is relegated to a religious term and is associated with making a solemn promise to God. When used outside the religious community it is more just an idiomatic expression of one’s passionate intent to keep a promise.
My point with all this is to show that there are words in the Bible that we automatically associate with our modern 21st Century cultural understanding rather than search for what it really was intended to mean when spoken 3,000 years ago in an entirely different language. In the Biblical Hebrew we have vows and covenants. The word covenant is berith which is a contract or what our modern understanding would be for a vow. The difference between a nadar vow and a berith covenant is in modern 21st Century English the difference between a promise and a vow. Thus, for proper 21st Century English Western understanding of Numbers 30:2, we should render it as “If a man makes a promise to God.” If the word berith was used then we could say if a man makes a vow to God.
You see many of us tend to treat promises lightly. We promise to be at a certain place at a certain time but we are late. Well things happen, traffic, trains etc. Not our fault easily forgiven. But if we had a legal contract to be at a certain place at a certain time, we face heavy consequences and somehow we will manage to be there on time. We take vows a little more seriously than we do promises but what the Word of God is saying is that we must take our promises just as seriously as we do our vows. We expect God to keep His promises and covenants yet, we tend to be less concerned about our promises than we expect God to be concerned about His promises. Can you imagine how unsettling it would be if God was as cavalier about his promises as we are with ours? We have thrown that word promise around so much and treated it so lightly in our 21st Century cultural that a promise merely means: “I will get about it if it doesn’t inconvenience me.”
I read something very interesting in the Talmud this morning about Genesis 30:2. In the Jewish Ethics of the Fathers it says that “Promises are a means to a life of sacrifice.” The Talmud in Avodah Zarah 20b it states: “A life of sacrifice leads to purity, purity leads to holiness and holiness leads to humility, humility leads to a fear of sin, a fear of sin leads to saintliness and saintliness leads us to the Holy Spirit.”
As Christians we long to be led the Spirit of God, we long to have a Spirit filled life. But a little thing like a broken promise will offend the Spirit God. The word for vow or promise is nadar which also means to return. A promise means that you will tell someone, “When the right time comes, I will return to this moment when I gave you my word to perform some action.” Before we can live a Spirit Filled life, we must return to our initial promise to God when we accepted Him as our Savior. That is to give Him complete and total control of our lives. To let Him live His life through us. That means a sacrifice of our will and desires to that of God’s.
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