Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 30-31.

Reading Moses’ instructions on oaths to the Children of Israel you could think that he was making women second class citizens.  Moses says that if a man takes an oath, he is bound by that oath.  On the other hand, if a woman takes an oath, her father, if she is not yet married, or her husband, if she is married, can negate that oath.  However, that misses an important element of Moses’ instructions here.  First, I want to point out that the woman’s father, or husband, must forbid the oath as soon as he learns of its existence.  If he does not do so immediately, the oath is binding and he must support her in keeping it.  If the woman’s father, or husband, forces her to violate the oath after failing to override it immediately upon learning of it, he bears the consequences of breaking the oath.  It is important to bear in mind that, in that society, a father or husband had the ability to prevent a woman from keeping most of the oaths which she might make.  Further, Moses instructed that  a woman who was widowed or divorced, that is, a woman who had control over her material goods and actions, would be bound by any oath or pledge which they entered into.  So, without Moses’ regulation regarding oaths and pledges taken by women who had yet to marry or who were married, no one would have entered into business dealings with them.  Without Moses’ regulation, a woman could enter into an agreement to provide something in return for goods or services, receive those goods or services, then, when it came time to provide the goods or services which were promised, her father or husband could have just denied her permission to transfer those goods or services to the other party.  Whereas, with Moses’ regulation, all that the person doing business with the woman needed to do was make sure that her father or husband was aware of the agreement.  If they did not cancel the agreement before goods or services were transferred to her, her father or husband was bound to allow her to pay for them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.