Numbers 6:13–21, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Numbers 6:13–21
Completed Nazirite Separation Returns to Ordinary Life
At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine.
Numbers 6:13–21 opens with “And this is the law of the Nazarite, when the days of his separation are fulfilled: he shall…” and closes with “This is the law of the Nazarite who hath vowed, and of his offering unto the LORD for….”
How the passage moves
Completion is marked publicly through offerings and hair.
The ritual returns the Nazirite from separation to ordinary permission.
A phrase that matters
one separated / bless
נָזִיר / בָּרַךְ · nazir / barakh
In 6:13-21, this wording keeps the unit's own claim and limit together: Completing a vow does not purchase divine favor, prove greater holiness, or authorize leaders to demand expensive ceremonies from vulnerable people.
How this should shape us
How should this shape us today?
Before accepting a serious pledge, clarify capacity, duration, costs, exit conditions, affected people, and whether social pressure or unequal power has compromised consent. Completing a vow does not purchase divine favor, prove greater holiness, or authorize leaders to demand expensive ceremonies from vulnerable people.
Teach it back
Explain Numbers 6:13–21 in your own words. Include its place in Numbers' movement from Sinai to Moab, both movements within this thought unit, one material uncertainty, one affected person or group, and one use the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Literary movement
Completion is marked publicly through offerings and hair. The ritual returns the Nazirite from separation to ordinary permission.
Contextual judgment
At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine. Completing a vow does not purchase divine favor, prove greater holiness, or authorize leaders to demand expensive ceremonies from vulnerable people.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
one separated / bless
Voluntary separation and priestly blessing belong to distinct units and must not become spiritual rank or a promise of painless life.
How certain? probableWhat the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Covenantal rhetoric, law, and historical setting
Nazirite separation and household vow rules treat spoken commitments as consequential within ancient sanctuary and patriarchal structures. Women may vow, yet fathers and husbands receive asymmetrical powers of confirmation or annulment. For this unit, reconstruction remains bounded by the received movement: At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
KJV wording and material alternatives
The pinned KJV wording of 6:13-21 is read with the complete Masoretic record and NET translator notes. A material chapter expression is “one separated / bless” (nazir / barakh): Voluntary separation and priestly blessing belong to distinct units and must not become spiritual rank or a promise of painless life.
How certain? probableEarlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Numbers within Torah and Jewish Scripture
Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Psalms, prophets, and later Jewish Scripture are compared where they frame, retell, or receive this unit. Final-form relationships remain primary; compositional, chronological, and historical alternatives are stated rather than harmonized away.
How certain? strongHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Canonical relationships after the first horizon
Leviticus regulates vows and valuations; Judges and Samuel narrate difficult vows; Numbers 6 and 30 preserve both voluntary consecration and household control. Later Jewish interpretation carefully develops their scope.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
Textual witnesses and reconstruction limits
The pinned KJV remains the displayed text. The reviewed Masoretic record and NET notes disclose material wording, number, name, syntax, and witness questions where present; no variant is silently substituted and textual silence is not converted into certainty.
How certain? probableWhere careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters disagree about vow types, the relationship of Numbers 6 and 30, adult agency, household authority, historical practice, and later legal reception. The text's male privilege should not be hidden by calling every arrangement protection. For “Completed Nazirite Separation Returns to Ordinary Life,” confidence is strongest in the received unit's stated sequence and literary function; source, date, demography, geography, mechanism, archaeology, and historical reconstruction remain probable, plausible, or uncertain as the evidence warrants.
How certain? probableTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
Words and voluntary commitments matter before God, while the text also exposes how vows operate inside unequal households and require responsible limits. This unit contributes that claim without making its severe action, unequal institution, or narrator-approved judgment ethically easy: At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
Across Numbers this unit contributes to the movement from Sinai's ordered camp through wilderness crisis and generational death toward Moab, succession, worship, land, and justice: At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine.
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
Completing a vow does not purchase divine favor, prove greater holiness, or authorize leaders to demand expensive ceremonies from vulnerable people.
A vivid command, blessing, curse, land claim, penalty, speech, or poetic line can feel easier to transfer than the complete covenant case and its affected people.
At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine.
Commitments should be informed, voluntary, specific, reviewable, and never used to trap a person in danger or transfer conscience to a controlling relative. This unit also keeps the following boundary explicit: Completing a vow does not purchase divine favor, prove greater holiness, or authorize leaders to demand expensive ceremonies from vulnerable people.
Completion is marked publicly through offerings and hair. The ritual returns the Nazirite from separation to ordinary permission.
This unit does not turn Israel's camp, priesthood, purity system, vow, war, land, penalty, census, or leadership arrangement into a direct constitution for a modern state, church, family, or military.
A vivid command, blessing, curse, land claim, penalty, speech, or poetic line can feel easier to transfer than the complete covenant case and its affected people.
At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine.
Commitments should be informed, voluntary, specific, reviewable, and never used to trap a person in danger or transfer conscience to a controlling relative. This unit also keeps the following boundary explicit: Completing a vow does not purchase divine favor, prove greater holiness, or authorize leaders to demand expensive ceremonies from vulnerable people.
Completion is marked publicly through offerings and hair. The ritual returns the Nazirite from separation to ordinary permission.
This passage must not be used for antisemitism, supersessionism, ethnic stigma, nationalism, genocide, conquest, misogyny, abuse, coercive obedience, date-setting, prosperity guarantees, or cruelty toward vulnerable people.
A vivid command, blessing, curse, land claim, penalty, speech, or poetic line can feel easier to transfer than the complete covenant case and its affected people.
At the vow's completion, the Nazirite brings a full offering set, shaves at the tent entrance, burns the hair under the peace offering, receives a priestly wave portion, and may again drink wine.
Commitments should be informed, voluntary, specific, reviewable, and never used to trap a person in danger or transfer conscience to a controlling relative. This unit also keeps the following boundary explicit: Completing a vow does not purchase divine favor, prove greater holiness, or authorize leaders to demand expensive ceremonies from vulnerable people.
Completion is marked publicly through offerings and hair. The ritual returns the Nazirite from separation to ordinary permission.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Numbers 6:13–21, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 6:13–21
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 6:13–21
Supports: Final-form movement, wilderness setting, census and camp, complaint, leadership, composition, and ethical framing.
Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 1, complete study guide sections “Introduction,” “At Sinai (1:1–10:10),” “From Sinai to Moab (10:11–22:1),” and “Composition,” applied to Numbers 6:13–21
Supports: Vow types, Nazirite relation, patriarchal authority, agency, and limits on modern household control.
TheTorah, “Can a Husband Annul His Wife's Nazirite Vow?,” complete comparison of Numbers 6 and 30, household authority, women, annulment, and later interpretation, applied to Numbers 6:13–21
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Numbers 6:13–21, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Numbers
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project
Open Scriptures, release 2.2, 2021
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 6:13–21
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Numbers with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, source files dated 2026-08-08
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 6:13–21
Open source ↗modern critical open study guide
Numbers Part 1
Yale Bible Study
Yale Divinity School, 2023 course edition
Supports: Final-form movement, wilderness setting, census and camp, complaint, leadership, composition, and ethical framing.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 1, complete study guide sections “Introduction,” “At Sinai (1:1–10:10),” “From Sinai to Moab (10:11–22:1),” and “Composition,” applied to Numbers 6:13–21
Open source ↗modern jewish scholarly open gender and legal study
Can a Husband Annul His Wife's Nazirite Vow?
Francis Landy
TheTorah.com, 2018
Supports: Vow types, Nazirite relation, patriarchal authority, agency, and limits on modern household control.
Exact location: TheTorah, “Can a Husband Annul His Wife's Nazirite Vow?,” complete comparison of Numbers 6 and 30, household authority, women, annulment, and later interpretation, applied to Numbers 6:13–21
Open source ↗