Someone who vowed to be a nazir, and petitioned a sage who declared it binding —- he counts from the time the vow was made. [If] he inquired of a sage who permitted it, [and] he had an animal set aside —- it may go out and pasture with the flock. Beis Hillel said to Beis Shammai: Do you not admit that here where the consecration is in error that it goes out and pastures with the flock? Beis Shammai said to them: Do you not admit that if someone erred and called the ninth the tenth, and the tenth the ninth, and the eleventh the tenth —- that each is sanctified? Beis Hillel said to them: No! Is it the rod that makes it sacred? What if he erred and placed the rod upon the eighth or the twelfth —- has he perhaps effected anything? Rather Scripture, which sanctified the tenth, has also sanctified the ninth and the eleventh.

Someone who vowed to be a nazir, and [when] he went to bring his animal, he found that it had been stolen —- if he declared himself a nazir before the animal had been stolen, he is a nazir; if he declared himself a nazir after the animal had been stolen, he is not a nazir. And this error was made by Nachum the Mede: When [a group of] nezirim came up from the Diaspora and found the Temple destroyed, Nachum the Mede said to them: “If you had known that the Temple would be destroyed, would you have vowed to be nezirim?” They answered him: “No!” So Nachum the Mede released them. But when the matter came before the Sages, they said to him: “Anyone who declared himself a nazir before the Temple was destroyed is a nazir; after the Temple was destroyed, he is not a nazir.”