Numbers 30:1 - Exposition

And Moses spake unto the heads of the tribes. The regulations here laid down about vows follow with a certain propriety upon those concerning the ordinary routine of sacrifices, but we cannot conclude with any assurance that they were actually given at this particular period. It would appear upon the lace of it that we have in Leviticus 27:1-34 , and in this chapter two fragments of Mosaic legislation dealing with the same subject, but, for some reason which it is useless to attempt to discover, widely separated in the inspired record. Nor does there seem to be any valid reason for explaining away the apparently fragmentary anti dislocated character of these two sections (see the Introduction). The statement, peculiar to this passage, that these instructions were issued to the "heads of the tribes" itself serves to differentiate it from all the rest of the "statutes" given by Moses, and suggests that this chapter was inserted either by some other hand or from a different source. There is no reason whatever for supposing that the "heads of the tribes" were more interested in these particular regulations than in many others which concerned the social life of the people (such as that treated of in Numbers 5:5-31 ) which were declared in the ordinary way unto "the children of Israel" at large.