Numbers 30:3

If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord,.... Who has not passed thirteen years, as the Targum of Jonathan: [and] bind [herself] by a bond; lay herself under obligation to perform her vow by an oath:

If a woman also vow a vow unto the LORD, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth; A woman ... in her father's house in her youth.

If a woman, or a man in the same circumstances, a son or a servant, as plainly appears from hence, because the reason of this law is perfectly the same in both sexes, which is, that such persons have given away what was not their own, but another’ s, even their superior’ s right, which is against the rule and law of natural reason, and against the word of God, which binds all persons to give to every one their due. He instanceth only in the woman, because that sex is both by creation and sin put into a state of subjection, but under the chief and most unquestionable kind all other subjects in like circumstances are comprehended, as is very usual. Being in her father’ s house, i.e. under his care, power, and government, which she is whilst she continues in her father’ s house, being a virgin, as appears by the opposition of a married woman, , and of a widow, and divorced woman, , and by this phrase of being in her father’ s house, for when she marries, she is removed into her husband’ s house, . Or, being in, or of her father’ s family, the word house being commonly used for family; for when she marries, she is translated and removed into another family. In her youth; when not only her sex, but her age, disenables her for vowing; and this clause is added not by way of restriction, as if’ virgins in their riper years were freed from their parents’ jurisdiction, and at their own disposal, (which undoubtedly they are not,) but by way of addition, or amplification, q.d. especially (which particle is here to be understood, such defects of particles being frequent in the Hebrew tongue) in her youth, which is commonly reckoned about her twelfth or thirteenth year.

(3) If a woman also . . . —Four distinct cases are contemplated in the following verses in regard to vows taken by women:—(1) that of an unmarried woman, living, in her youth, in the house of her father; (2) that of a woman who is unmarried at the time of making a vow, but enters into the state of marriage before the vow is fulfilled; (3) that of a widow, or of a divorced woman; and (4) that of a married woman. The sanctity and obligations of the fifth commandment are distinctly recognised and enforced in these verses. (See Matthew 15:4-5.) Whenever the vow which the young daughter had made should come to the ears of her father, he had the power either to ratify or to disannul it. If he remained silent the vow was ratified; if he disallowed the vow, the obligation to fulfil it no longer remained in force.

Verse 3. In her youth] That is, say the rabbins, under twelve years of age; and under thirteen in case of a young man. Young persons of this age were considered to be under the authority of their parents, and had consequently no power to vow away the property of another. A married woman was in the same circumstances, because she was under the authority of her husband. If however the parents or the husband heard of the vow, and objected to it in the same day in which they heard of it, (Numbers 30:5), then the vow was annulled; or, if having heard of it, they held their peace, this was considered a ratification of the vow. A rash vow was never to be kept; "for," says Philo, and common sense and justice say the same, "he who commits an unjust action because of his vow adds one crime to another, 1. By making an unlawful vow; 2. By doing an unlawful action."

3. in her youth] Old unmarried women are not mentioned. But since marriage was, in the eyes of a Jew, a religious duty, this class of women must have been very small, and would probably be subject to the same rule as widows.

Being in her father’s house in her youth - It was not ordinarily until her betrothal or marriage, that the female passed (some suppose by purchase) from the power of her father to that of her husband.

THE MAID’S VOW, Numbers 30:3-5. 3. If a woman vow — Both Judaism and Christianity recognise the religious nature and rights of woman, in marked contrast to the denial of those rights by paganism.