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Vengeance against Midian for luring Israel into false worshipWhen your spiritual well runs dry

Vows and oaths are not identical or synonymous in Torah. There are two kinds of vows, either of prohibition or of obligation. For example, you can take a vow to prohibit yourself from eating apples. That’s a vow of prohibition. An example of a vow of obligation would be if you dedicate your entire apple harvest give to the church. In both cases, you have elevated a particular thing as separated and holy to God.

If a man violates his vow, there are consequences as though you had broken a law of the written Torah. If a woman violates a vow, there are some extenuation circumstances. If an unmarried woman makes a vow and her father hears of it, he can veto it and she doesn’t bear any punishment. If, on the other hand, the father hears of the vow and he doesn’t speak up, then she is obligated to it and the father would get in trouble if he later reneges on it.

It’s similar to the vows of married women, only it’s their husband, not their father who can over rule or affirm her vow.

In the late first century A.D., Rabbi Akiva loosened the rules regarding vows. 

In the late first century AD, Rabbi Akiva used a powerful story from his own personal life, that was later recorded in the Talmud in Tractate Kesuvos 63a on how rash vows can be annulled. The story goes that Akiva attracted the attention of a beautiful, wealthy young girl and they wanted to marry but her father made a vow that he would utterly disown her if they married. Well, they got married and shortly thereafter, Akiva went away to study Torah and his wife stayed behind to work to make money to send to him so he could study full time.

Once the father heard that his daughter had married Akiva against his wishes, he threw her out of his house, cut her out of his will and gave her no money or financial support.

Akiva excelled in his rabbinic studies and became a renown sage and rabbi in his own right. After 20+ years, Akiva’s father in law began to regret his rash vow and decided he needed to find a distinguished rabbi to help him out of his vow so he could reunite with his daughter.

The father meets with Rabbi Akiva when he came to his town. The father in law did not recognise Akiva after all these years and he pour out his heart to Akiva, explaining the vow he had made against his daughter.

Akiva asked the man if when he was angry at his daughter for marrying that guy he thought was a good for nothing, if he had known that his son in law would redeem himself and become a respectable person, would he still have disavowed her then from his family? The father said no, if he had known that his son in law would work hard and become a valuable member of the community, he would not have disowned his daughter for marrying him. This is how Akiva annulled his father in law’s vow.

You can say he had a conflict of interest in annulling his father in laws’ vow, as his wife had suffered 20+ years of great financial hardship and distress over her exile from her family, but Rabbi Akiva is teaching a deep lesson about forgiveness and reconciliation.

If after reading this, you follow our Messiah Yeshua’s advice — to let your yes be yes and your no be no (Matt. 5:33–37) — this is very good.

Vengeance against Midian for luring Israel into false worship