“Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through a multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by a multitude of words. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fool’s: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hand? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God” (Ecclesiastes 5: 1-7 KJV).
King Solomon says, “Keep thy foot.” We keep our foot or our feet by limiting excessive speech and being mindful of the vow in which we are promising to fulfill. We consign our feet to the actions that the words of our mouth ordered.
Our mouth gets us in trouble with both man and God. Man is limited in what he can do for promises not kept, but God isn’t. Reverential silence before God is the best policy. It is better to hear the made promises that God will fulfill than for us to make promises we will not keep. We should hear and do the Word of God rather than allowing God to hear us make promises we have no intention of keeping.
A vow not kept is called “the sacrifice of fools” and something “evil.” The atmosphere in a worship service often becomes so charged with emotions that people are stirred and tend to speak irrationally by saying more than they should, saying what they do not mean, and what they otherwise would not normally say. And what they say may have been inspired by a misinterpreted personal dream.
We do not have to make a vow, but if we do, we must ensure that it is fulfilled. If we do not pay our vow, we have sinned. We can not say that our vow was a mistake or error in order to get out of our vow, for this angers God and may cause Him to destroy our labors. There are many that can testify of the hurt they suffered for not keeping their vow to God. Jesus said, “That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12: 36).
Placing a great importance and emphasis on our dreams and then obligating ourselves with a multiplicity of words based on our interpretation of those dreams leads to many vanities, emptiness, and dissatisfaction. The one obligation, duty, and responsibility we all have is to fear and worship God.
