In Leviticus chapter twenty-seven, verse two, the Lord speaks to Moses regarding the children of Israel about when a man makes a vow. A vow is a solemn promise, a pledge, or a personal commitment such as marriage vows or a vow of secrecy. Chapter twenty-seven deals with things vowed or promised to the Lord, such as persons, animals, houses, and land. A value was on them if one who made the promise wanted to buy back the gift. This gesture indicates that some would have the temptation of not honoring their vow.
Words are easy to say, but actions are harder to do when keeping promises. Especially if two people agree on something and one fulfills their end and the other does not. The drama and the trauma that potentially comes after not following through can be fatal. When a vow is towards God where we promise or swear, we better keep it because it can be difficult if we do not honor it. In Ecclesiastes five, verses four and five explain when a person vows to God and decides not to pay it: they should consider fulfilling it.
God has no pleasure in fools. The person would be better off not making a promise than making one and not paying it. Why? The trouble that comes after could be a problem because it depends on what is involved. Some who do not honor experience loss, rejection, pain, misery, regret, bondage, affliction, stress, harassment, no freedom, and constant arguments ranging from brief to a long period: possibly a lifetime.
In Genesis twenty-eight verses twenty to twenty-one, Jacob vows to say, ” If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on: So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God.” God did follow up with Jacob on that vow because He mentions it in chapter thirty-one, verse thirteen. “I am the God of Bethel, where thou anoints the pillar, and where thou vowed a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.”
Jephthah in Judges eleven verse thirty, vowed to God and said, “ If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” In First Samuel one verse eleven, Hannah vows to God saying, “O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon thine head.”