Numbers 30:1-9

The reason why I thought that verse 9 has the most bearing on this is because she was a grown woman. She had already left her father's house and so by analogy, she was like a widow or a divorced woman who was living on her own. She was not living in her father's house and she was not a youth. So she was bound by her vow, or as it says, by some agreement in verse 2. And also in verse 3, if a woman vows a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement.

That is what she did. This lady made a contract, a written contract, with these people who took Jessica. Since she was no longer in her father's house, nor was she married yet, she was still a year and a half away from being married. She was not under a man's authority. She would be considered competent to make her own decisions and she would therefore legally have to stand by them. So the contract she signed with the Michigan couple would be legally and eternally binding, and the unmarried father would have no legal recourse in the matter. He is just totally outside the whole case.

Numbers 30:1-2

Let us go back to the book of Numbers. The next chapter deals with vows—essentially, these admonitions on vows.

These are essentially keeping one’s word. It all starts with, first of all, keeping our vows to God and, of course, he includes here all of our agreements that we make with other people. He wants us to be honest people who can be trusted, whose word is ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and nothing in between. Most of all, though, God wants us to be faithful to our agreement with Him. He wants us to keep the covenant. And when we do not keep the covenant, He is very angry and He is very quick to respond. We get instruction on keeping vows all through the Bible. Here, in Ecclesiastes 5, he writes: