VOWS, OATHS & PROMISES From Mattot/Massei 2025 Torah Portion

NOTE: THE TRANSCRIPT IS NOT EXACTLY LIKE THE RECORDING.

Num 30:1  Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying, “This is the thing which Yahweh has commanded. 
Num 30:2  When a man vows a vow to Yahweh, or swears an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.  

What is the difference between a vow and an oath? Vows are between man and God, God and man. Oaths are between 2 or more people, such as the 2 people of the wedding ceremony. Weddings involve both vows and oaths. The couple, together as one entity, vows to YHVH to conduct their marriage as He specifies and they make oaths of loyalty, oneness, to each other in every possible condition that can happen in life. 

The oaths of a group of individuals has as an example immigrants swearing loyalty to their new chosen nation in a citizenship ceremony, in a courtroom or in a group of people entering military service.

Oaths can also be spoken without witnesses. Don’t worry if you speak an oath in secret to someone and think that no one will know. YHVH hears everything! The moment you open your mouth, there is a record of your words. For instance, when a man and woman do “secret” vows and oaths of marriage with no one around, no one knows, or so they think. But when they start living together, someone will ask about their vows and oaths. Know this: what we speak WILL BE discovered.

People don’t like it when others hold their words against them. But they have the right to hold our words against us. We should learn not to speak unless we intend to fulfill. But if others hold our words against us and they have the right to do that, it is also our right to repent for our words and their requirement is, then, to forgive us and not hold those words against any longer.

Yeshua said let your yes be yes and your no be no (Matthew 5:37). Both positive and negative assertions carry the weight of responsibility for the person to fulfill it. 

PROMISES are a declaration that you will do something or that you will cause a particular situation to happen. Promises are not part of the formality of human vows and oaths, but they still carry weight, greater weight, in fact.

Here is how vows and oaths are legally different than promises before YHVH. Vows and oaths are associated with significant life events at which we make commitments. Vows and oaths have expiration dates. The marriage vows and oaths end with the death of one of the parties. Nazarite vows end when the either the Nazarite or YHVH says it will end. Contracts, a vow or oath written on paper (which only came about in modern times BECAUSE we have paper and paper somehow seems stronger than our word), come with expiration dates. But promises have no expiration date. It must be fulfilled. Promises can be upheld in court even without a contract. If you make a promise to do something by such and such a date, and that date has passed without the promise being fulfilled, the promise still stands but it stands unfulfilled and is then subject to being upheld in court. So be careful about making promises.

People often use the word “promise” when they are actually speaking an oath to us. They also use the word “promise” frivolously. Either way, we use the word “promise” altogether too lightly and it has become perverted to the point where we do not believe in promises anymore because so many people have broken their promises to us. This affects how we view the promises of YHVH to His people.

We have become skeptical and cynical about His promises because of the promises broken by people. We fail to understand that our word represents our character both to YHVH and people. But because the word “promise” has become so perverted, and people know promises are broken all the time, they have learned to not trust YHVH’s promises. However, you can take His promises to the bank! May we not cause people to become like that toward YHVH’s promises.

There are differences under which men make vows or promises to YHVH or to others and how women do this. This is one of the few ways YHVH treats the genders differently.

Num 30:3  “Also when a woman vows a vow to Yahweh, and binds herself by a bond, being in her father’s house, in her youth, 

Perhaps, the first kind of vow we will think of is the Nazarite vow which is a vow to serve YHVH in His Tabernacle and which can also involve abstinence. Serving in the Tabernacle is open to both men and women but the father or husband of a woman can approve or nullify her vow. 

Two problems arise with a daughter making such a vow. First, if her service will involve her abstinence, then there will be no grandchildren for her father. This might be an issue in a small family like Jephthah’s whose daughter was offered to the Tabernacle and who mourned the loss of motherhood in Joshua chapter 12.

Num 30:4  and her father hears her vow, and her bond with which she has bound her soul, and her father says nothing to her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond with which she has bound her soul shall stand. 

Her vow shall stand until her father approves or disapproves.

There is another problem with a daughter who wants to serve YHVH via a vow. The bond mentioned in verse 3 is the payment, the sacrifice, which is required to implement the vow. Nazarite vows, which are open to both men and women, are begun with a sacrifice. The daughter does not have the authority to take her father’s property for this purpose without his permission.

Num 30:5  But if her father forbids her in the day that he hears, none of her vows, or of her bonds with which she has bound her soul, shall stand. Yahweh will forgive her, because her father has forbidden her. 

One caveat for fathers is to discover whether his daughter’s desire to serve YHVH is actually a call from YHVH to the daughter or just a whim which will pass. He will surely make her life miserable if YHVH has truly called her but he refuses to let her serve for selfish reasons such as the loss of grandchildren and the sacrificial animals.

Num 30:6  “If she has a husband, while her vows are on her, or the rash utterance of her lips, with which she has bound her soul, 
Num 30:7  and her husband hears it, and says nothing to her in the day that he hears it; then her vows shall stand, and her bonds with which she has bound her soul shall stand.  

What are “rash” utterances? The word ‘rash’ is the Hebrew word ‘saphah’, H8193. It is hasty speech that has not taken the consequences into account. A wife who speaks hastily binds her husband as well as herself. If her vow is to serve in the Tabernacle, the reason for the husband’s required approval is because her service to YHVH will take precedence over her wifely duties. If oath is to fulfill another condition involving other people, perhaps she has not counted the cost and consequences for her husband and their household. Just as YHVH’s people do not have the authority to bind Him, a wife does not have the authority to bind her husband to a situation.

YHVH’s people have bound him, though. The best example is the Israelites with the Gibeonites in the time of Joshua. Their rash ‘saphah’ utterance that they would make a covenant with the Gibeonites bound them and YHVH with the Gibeonites. To be ‘rash’ means the situation was not carefully considered and prayed about. Joshua and the elders didn’t have the authority to make a covenant but such things can be done without having the authority to do it. Once done, however, that’s it. Everyone is stuck! YHVH heard their utterance and did not stop it. He allowed Israel to suffer the results of their covenant with the Gibeonites. Sometimes, experiencing the consequences of poor action is more valuable than correction. That problem was still with them in the time of David and they paid a heavy price for it.

Here are some scriptures about keeping our word:

Deu 23:21  When you vow a vow to Yahweh your God, you shall not be slack to pay it; for Yahweh your God will surely require it of you; and it would be sin in you.
Deu 23:22  But if you refrain from making a vow, it shall be no sin in you.
Deu 23:23  You shall observe and do that which has gone out of your lips. Whatever you have vowed to Yahweh your God as a freewill offering, which you have promised with your mouth, you must do.

Psa 15:1  A Psalm by David. Yahweh, who shall dwell in your sanctuary? Who shall live on your holy hill? 

The relevant question to this teaching is in Psa 15:4 where scripture say: he who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and doesn’t change; 

Ecc 5:2  Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few.  

Ecc 5:5  It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.  

Mat 5:33  “Again you have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall perform to the Lord your vows,’ 
Mat 5:34  but I tell you, don’t swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; 
Mat 5:35  nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 
Mat 5:36  Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can’t make one hair white or black. 
Mat 5:37  But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Whatever is more than these is of the evil one. 

Swearing on one’s own head is useless because doing so means the recipient of the oath can take your head from your body if you fail in your oath, first of all. But as Yeshua said, you can’t change the color of your hair (and no, Clairol doesn’t work for that!).

What is a “false vow” that Yeshua spoke of in Matthew 5:33? One of its cross references is: 

Exodus 20:7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Psalm 141:3 Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.

One more point before I close my comment. We have all broken our word at some point in our lives. Even if we can’t remember when we have done that, it is good to ask the Father to help us remember and/or for Him to simply forgive us for those times because breaking our word makes us liars.

Revelation 21:8  But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Jordanians almost always say “God willing” when promising to do something. That can become a way of saying “I am telling you what you want to hear but my intention is to not do what is coming out of my mouth, but I am not really lying to you because I said “God willing”. We should learn to say yes and no. Say yes only when you know you can fulfill your word and say no when there is a question in your mind as to whether you can fulfill what you say or when you absolutely know you cannot fulfill that kind of promise or oath.

Mat 21:28  But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ 
Mat 21:29  He answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind, and went. 
Mat 21:30  He came to the second, and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I’ m going, sir,’ but he didn’t go. 
Mat 21:31  Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you. 

Our word is way more important than we understand. The power of life and death is with our tongue (Proverbs 18:21) and if we are habitual oath and promise breakers, it is OUR life and death that is at stake coming from our tongues. Vows, oaths and promises made are just the beginning of the power of our tongues. Let’s be careful with it.