Well I guess the bell has been rung. Here I go…..
No, no, no. We’re not going to the dark place! Unfortunately. I love the dark place…..
But I will defend the negative. The positive case was not explained very thoroughly so the OP may need to make some clarifications if I don’t counter all of his points.
First off the TLDR; Numbers 30, and specifically verses 3-5 can not apply to marriage and so a father’s permission to marry a woman is not mandated by Numbers 30.
Now here’s why; read verse 9. It’s that simple. Read verse 9. Here, I’ll quote it for you.
“ 'As to the vow of a widow or cast-out woman, all that she hath bound on her soul is established on her.”
So we’re not talking about marriage here because if we were then this would mean that the widow or cast out woman would now be married and their vows wouldn’t be binding on them because their new husband could disallow them as laid out in verses 6-8.
Now that may seem a little too cute for you but it brings up another issue; this passage also applies to already married women and their husband. Obviously a husband doesn’t have authority to allow or disallow a wife to take another husband, so clearly this passage is not talking about marriage formation.
Now that might also be too cute for you. You could say that it applies to all vows, including marriage. That’s fine but it brings us to another issue, verse 6.
Verse 6 puts this whole thing to bed. Let’s read it together, “ 6 ¶ 'And if she be at all to a husband, and her vows are on her, or a wrongful utterance on her lips, which she hath bound on her soul…”
Now right off the bat we know that we’re not dealing with one type of vow because it says “vows…or….utterance”. This passage does apply to vows and utterances but let’s set that aside for a minute (I promise we’ll come back to it) and look at something else first.
There is a very interesting phrase at the beginning of this sentence. And here I’m going to switch from the YLT and quote the NASB95 for clarity; “ However, if she should fnmarry while fnunder her vows…”
The marriage, according to verse 6, is separate from her vows. Power over the vows transfers to husband with the marriage. In other words we’re not talking about marriage formation here; we’re talking about vows.
Now you can dig your heels in and claim that marriage is a vow and despite verse 6 the father could disallow the marriage as it’s a vow and verse 6 only comes in to play if the fathers allows it to; but first you would have to show that marriage is indeed a vow. And you can’t. And almost everyone involved in this conversation knows that you can’t.
There is not one passage of scripture that would lead anyone to believe that marriage is a vow or even a covenant, and yes I’m aware of Malachi 2. Read it carefully and in its entirety. I will be happy to walk through it with you if you like.
Now I don’t think we should leave out verse 1 in this discussion. It also talks about vows and that they are binding on men no matter what. In other words rhis passage is about vows in general, not marriage. We have to show how marriage would fall into this category of vows before we can make a law about it, especially one this portentous.
There’s another verse that clinches it for me though and it’s verse 16, “ These are the statutes which the LORD commanded Moses, as between a man and his wife, and as between a father and his daughter, while she is in her youth in her father’s house.”
Read that last line, the father’s ability to nullify his daughter’s vows has an expiration date that is not marriage. It only applies in her youth and while she is in his house. If she is no longer a youth but still in his house, he doesn’t have an ability to annul her vows.
I know that these arguments are not convincing to some people but there are some things any honest person will have to admit.
Numbers 30 does not claim to be about the formation of marriage and makes it quite clear that it applies to all vows and utterances. It names the category that it applies to, vows and utterances, but does not define that category. That work would have to be done outside the passage.
And since this same instruction applies to married women (through their husband) and to widows and cast out women (through their exemption); we can not claim that the passage is even primarily about the formation of a marriage.
And verse 16 makes it very hard to make the case that it even could apply tangentially to marriage formation since the marriage the father would be gate keeping would have to occur while the girl was a child and in his house.
I’m sorry but it is just impossible to read Numbers 30 correctly and derive an authority for fathers to veto marriages.
