Every binding oath to afflict the soul— By fasting, abstinence, or rather acts of mortification and self-denial. See Leviticus 16:24. Perhaps St. Paul had this passage in view, when he says, the wife hath not power over her own body. 1 Corinthians 7:4. The husband had it in his power to establish or make void the vows of the wife; but (Numbers 30:14-15.) the tacit or explicit consent of the husband to the religious vow of the wife, and of the father to the vow of the daughter, once freely given at the first making of it, was to establish and render it irreversible. Their silence, or not contradicting it, at the first proposal, was to be interpreted consent; nor was it in the husband's or parent's power to retract that consent, or hinder the performance of the vow in due manner; which if he did, he was to bear her iniquity; that is,
God would punish him, not her, for a breach of sacred faith. Houbigant renders this, after the Samaritan and LXX, he should bear his own iniquity: for, says he, there is no iniquity in the wife whom the husband permits not to perform her vow; the iniquity is his, who prevents the performance of it. But, according to the interpretation we have given them, there is no great difference.