The Targum's version of (Numbers 30) adds specific ages to the Torah's vow laws, transforming abstract principles into concrete legal thresholds. A male becomes bound by his vows at thirteen years old. A female becomes bound at twelve. These ages, which the Torah never states, reflect the rabbinic tradition of bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah—and the Targum embeds them directly into the biblical text, centuries before they were formally codified.
The Targum also introduces a safety valve the Torah does not mention. A man who vows "shall not be allowed to relax his word at his own will; nevertheless, the beth din—the court—can absolve him." No individual can undo their own oath, but a rabbinical court has the authority to release them. This is a dramatic legal innovation woven into the translation itself.
The laws governing a father's power over his daughter's vows receive careful expansion. If he hears her vow and says nothing, the Targum specifies that his silence constitutes consent—"being acquiescent"—and the vow stands permanently. But if he "prohibits her on the day that he hears," and the Targum adds "not being prepared to confirm," the vow is annulled. Timing is everything. He has one day.
A married woman's vows involve a more complex chain of authority. If she made a vow while still in her father's house and "her father had not absolved her while unmarried," the vow transfers intact to her married life, and her husband must then decide whether to confirm or nullify it. The Targum traces the vow through each stage of a woman's life—from her father's house to her husband's—showing how legal obligations tracked with domestic transitions.
The widow and the divorcee stand apart. "The vow of a widow, or a divorced woman, whatever has bound her soul, shall be confirmed upon her." With no father or husband to intervene, she bears full legal responsibility for her own words. The Targum presents this not as a burden but as a recognition of her autonomous standing before God.