What’s in a Word?

speech

vow

נדר · שבועה · נדבה · קונם · נדרים · שבועות

Bottom line

Neder is a vow: it works on an object, giving it a forbidden status on the model of hekdesh. Shevuah is an oath: it works on the person, binding him to do or not do, and it ordinarily invokes Hashem's name. They are not two grades of one thing, and the Gemara (Nedarim 2b) treats them as two distinct instruments, each with its own masechta. A nedavah is a subclass of neder, a freewill offering that both undertakes the korban and designates the animal. The trap is the common English "promise" and "oath," which make the pair look like a weaker and a stronger version of the same act.

Distinctions

neder (נדר)

A verbal declaration that shifts the halachic status of a thing. Its focus is the object: the neder forbids benefit from an item or from a person, or forbids a food, by making that thing something like consecrated property, and so forbidden to him. In this form it is called a konam, a deliberately altered form of korban, since the mechanism copies the making of an object into property of the Beis HaMikdash. A man who takes a neder not to smoke has in effect said that benefit from cigarettes shall be forbidden to him as the use of a consecrated animal is forbidden to him. The same word covers the pledge to bring a korban or a donation to the Beis HaMikdash. The masechta is Nedarim, in Seder Nashim.

nedavah (נדבה)

A type of neder which is one statement doing two jobs: undertaking to bring an offering, sometimes only by implication, and designating the specific animal as that offering. One who points to his ram and says that this ram shall be an olah has both obligated himself in an olah and consecrated that ram.

shevuah (שבועה)

An oral statement, ordinarily invoking Hashem's name, whose focus is the speaker. It can be positive or negative and can face the past or the future: I swear I will do, I swear I will not do, I swear I did, I swear I did not. Beis din can also impose two further kinds in litigation, one on a litigant to back his claim and one on a subpoenaed witness who says he has nothing to testify. Every valid shevuah must be kept or must be true.

The prohibited class is the shevuas shav of the third of the Aseres HaDibros, taking Hashem's name in vain, of four kinds: swearing to what is plainly false (that a marble pillar is gold), swearing to what is self-evident (that the heavens are the heavens), swearing to transgress (that he will not put on tefillin), and swearing to the impossible (that he will not sleep for three days). The masechta is Shevuos, in Seder Nezikin.

The dividing line

Both are oral pronouncements with legal force under the Torah, both are covered by the charge not to profane one's word (Bamidbar 30:3). The difference is where each lands: the neder on a specific object, forbidding it or benefit from it; the shevuah on the person, obligating him to an act or its avoidance. Shlomo HaMelech's "death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Mishlei 18:21) is the measure of what speech can create. Because of that weight it is the custom to annul nedarim and shevuos before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Rendering guidance

  • Neder: "vow." Shevuah: "oath." Fix these and keep them fixed; do not use "promise" for either in a halachic text, since a promise binds nothing.
  • Trap: English "oath" will absorb both, and "vow" is worse, since in ordinary English a vow is personal (a marriage vow), which is precisely the shevuah side. Where a passage sets the two against each other (Nedarim 2b and the opening sugyos of both masechtos), keep the Hebrew and gloss on first use.
  • Nedavah: "freewill offering" in korbanos contexts; do not render it "gift," which drops the consecration.
  • Konam stays transliterated with a gloss at first use, since the point of the word is that it is a substitute form of korban; "prohibition formula" loses it entirely.
  • Bamidbar 30:3 sets both terms in one pasuk. Render "if a man vows a neder to Hashem or swears a shevuah"; a rendering that gives "makes a vow or swears an oath" without the Hebrew leaves the reader unable to follow the sugya that follows.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Of Oaths and Promises," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 28 Elul 5776 (2016-10-01): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/6963-of-oaths-and-promises.md. Primary loci cited: Bamidbar 30:3; Nedarim 2b; Mishlei 18:21; the third of the Aseres HaDibros; masechtos Nedarim (Seder Nashim) and Shevuos (Seder Nezikin). This is a halachic rather than a lexicographic piece: it names no rishonim or grammarians, so every distinction above rests on the Gemara's own division and on the standard halachic categories the article lays out. A project needing authorities for these definitions should go to Rambam, Hilchos Nedarim and Hilchos Shevuos, which the article does not cite.