Oath (Hastings' Dictionary)

The leading terms for ‘ oath,’ ‘ swear,’ etc., are 4, 7>x noun and verb; Kal=‘swear,’ Hiphil ‘put under oath.’ This word has more especially the sense of ‘curse,’ LXX dpd, Vuly. maledictio; cf. the phrase πον mn ‘become an execration,’ Nu 5% (P), Jer 3918 4018 4419 (see below). Cf. Ac 23% 2, where dva@euarltew is used of the Jews who bound themselves under an oath (curse) to kill St. Paul. 2. may ‘oath,’ yay) (Niph.) ‘swear,’ y'2y0 (Hiph.) ‘cause to swear,’ ‘take an oath of one,’ atin?

answering respectively to the LXX ὅρκος, ὄμνυμι or ὀμνύω, dpxifw or ἐξορκίζω, and the Vulg. yuramentum or jusjurandum, jurare, adjurare. The verb p22 is derived from y3y ‘seven.’ Seven was regarded as a sacred number by the Sem- ites, and so the verb would mean literally ‘ to come under the influence of seven things’ (W. R. Smith, RS, p. 166; cf. above, p. 565). For example, seven animals would be killed or seven witnesses called.

That we may understand the purpose and im- portance of oaths among the Hebrews in primitive times, the historical situation requires to be borne in mind.

Before there was a collective national life, with an accepted code of laws and a strong executive, any convention formed among men had to be of the nature of a mutual understanding ; and when the agreement was one of much moment, it was made as binding as the circumstances of the time allowed, by the parties to it subjecting them- selves with all due solemnity to an oath. Ex- amples of oaths between men we have in Gn 9055. 50”, Jos 2! 916.

18, Τῇ conformity with the entire usage, and with the externalism which was its principal feature, strict attention was given to the forms and technicalities employed; a kind of ritual was established in oath-taking. In par- ticular, the custom prevailed of killing an animal in the ceremonial, the symbolism in this case having been both elaborate aud impressive.

The practice is described in Gn 15 and Jer 34%, The victim was divided into two pieces, and the per- sons concerned walked between the pieces, in testi- mony of their invocation of the like doom of destruction upon themselves if they proved un- faithful to their oath. The form of walking between the pieces after eating of the sacrifice is held by Haber Smith to have been further indicative of the belief that the parties were taken within the mystical life of the victim.

Among the simpler forms used there is the act of ‘ putting the hand under the thigh’ (Gn 9455. 4739) ; the under- lying idea is discussed by Dillmann, in loc. (See also art. THIGH). Or the hand is stretched out to heaven (Gn 14”; οἵ. Dn 12’, Rev 1055), this gesture by its naturalness explaining itself, The language of adjuration varies greatly.

Among the commonest expressions are the phrases, ‘The Lorp do so to me, and more also,’ and ‘As the Lorp liveth,’ or there is the extended form, “As the Lorp liveth, and as thy soul liveth.’ Jacob swears by the fear (102, i.e. ‘the object of his fear’=God; cf. v.“) of his father Isaac (Gn 31°), and Joseph swears by the life of Pharaoh (Gn 42").

In early times the tribal god and an earthly ruler had not been sharply distinguished from each other in men’s thoughts: thus the practice of swearing by the prince or by the life of the prince would be accounted for.

On the other hand, even when better things were to be expected after the establishment of ethical mono- theism, abuses were common among the scribes ; there was a declension by easy transitions from the invocation of the Deity to forms of adjuration by some of the familiar objects of earth.

Thus one would swear by Heaven, by Jerusalem as the Holy City, by the earth, by his own head (Mt 5“), or again by the temple as the House of God, by the gold of the temple, by the altar, or by the gift on the altar (Mt 2328), As the Author of the world was invoked in adjuration, the idea prevailed that the oath, once uttered, had objective significance in the sense that it affected the course of nature; a conviction that may be taken to indicate in one aspect of it how even primeval man was feeling after the truth which was afterwards to be revealed, that ‘out of the heart are the issues of life.

’ To take an oath was to come under a specified penalty in case of violation of the oath, to expose one’s self to a curse. Accordingly adx=‘oath or curse.

’ Thus the princes of the congregation of Israel, having sworn to the Gibeonites to be at peace with them and to let them live, find that they must carry out their undertaking, at least in form, even when it was discovered that the Gibeonites had been de- ceivers, ‘lest,’ they said, ‘wrath be upon us be- cause of the oath which we sware unto them’ (Jos 9). And Saul resolved, in fulfilment of an oath he had uttered, to kill his son Jonathan, who was innocent (1S 14%; cf. Mt 149).

In Nu 5 the oath of cursing, administered with the ritual of the water of bitterness, entails the most terrible consequences on the guilty; and in Zec 5! the flying roll of the prophetic vision represents a curse ‘like a bird of prey’ pursuing the wicked person over the face of the whole earth. In view of the far-reaching consequences invoived in oath-taking, the law placed careful restrictions on the practica in the case of members of a family other than the head (Nu 30).

Perjury on the part of a witness was punished with the same penalty which his testimony, if true, would have involved for the accused persot (Dt 1938), Oaths as between God and men.

At a perioa when every important compact among men was paltiieeaT eg an oath, and when there was no other guarantee for the discharge of their lia- bilities by each of the parties concerned, the con- ception formed of God’s relation to His people was, and could only be, the conception of His making a romise to them under the sanction of an oath.

en God is represented as taking 2 oath to the fathers, it is meant that those with whom He entered into relation gained the assurance that His fidelity to them and to His promise was unalter- able (cf. He 6). His nature was partly understood through the thoughts and practices of the best men of the time; whereas a presentation of His ways and character by means of ideas which were entirely unconnected with the current life of the age would have been meaningless and void of effect.

The oath which God took to Abraham, and which is so often referred to, is given in Gn 22!5* ; ‘By myself have I sworn, saith the Lorp .. that in estae I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multply thy seed as the stars,’ etc. When God is regarded as binding Himself by an oath, a period has been reached in the repel of Revelation which is comparatively well definea both in respect to the initial and the closing stage of it.

There has been an advance when the truth is communicated to man, in such a way as to be believed, that God makes and will without fail keep a promise, that He is spiritual and moral, and has an interest in man. n the other hand, the peculiar externalism of such religious faith is obvious; and it is ΒΕΡΕΣΘΕΙ that only & very limited knowledge of the divine nature is attain- able, in the absence of practical proof of God’s intervention for good in ie exigencies of earthly life.

The experience and thought of the period in uestion are accordingly transcended; trust in hod comes to be based on other ground. When the chosen people were formed into a nation, the warrant and motive for obedience, enforced again and again to the better mind of the Israelites, was the deliverance from Ἔσται bondage, and the known goodness of Jehovah.

Not merely because a promise had once been made and confirmed by an oath, but because God had saved the people, loved them, and brought His goodness in the law near to their heart, were they under obligation to serve Him. The old oath is frequently adduced indeed, but the spiritual and moral facts of the nation’s history are mainly rehearsed in attestation of the truth that God was faithful to His oath.

In the New Covenant (Jer 315%), and above all in ite completion in Christ, men’s knowledge of the Lord, their trust in Him, rests on His forgiveness of their sin, and on His creation of a new and better righteousness. On the human side in OT religion man took oath toGod. An oath was ‘a peculiarly solemn confession of faith’ (Driver, Deut. p. 95). Fear from being reprehensible from the religious or moral point of view, the practice was incumbent on the pious, and had the promise of blessing.

(‘Every one that sweareth by him shall glory,’ Ps 63%), OBADIAH OBADIAH, BOOK OF 577 But it is requisite that one shall swear by Jehovah the true God, shall do so in truth and righteous- ness of spirit, and shall faithfully perform the oath (Jer 4?

1216), It is sinful to swear by them that are no gods, as Baal, and so to acknowledge them, or by images or forms usurping the place of God, as the ‘sin of Samaria’ or the ‘ way ” (under- stood to be the ‘manner’ or ‘ritual’)* of Beer- sheba (Jer 12°, Am 814), Also the double-dealing of those who swear to the Lord and swear by Malcam is severely condemned (Zeph 15).

In the time of Christ, minute arbitrary dis- tinctions had been set up by the scribes and Pharisees in adjuration, such as were plainly destructive of the moral sense and amounted to a profanation of the name of God; and the abuse called forth from Christ the severest denunciation (Mt 231"), An oath which was to all appeariunce most solemn and binding was evaded after all by the methods of casuistry, by the tacit reservation that it had no force, that ‘it was nothing.

’ The name of God was invoked to cover deliberate deceit. But our Lord goes further when He lays down the principle in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Swear not at all’ (Mt 5*-°7; so Ja 5%). Men’s speech is to be ‘ Yea, yea; nay, nay.’ All com- munication between them is to be taken up to the sphere of perfect truthfulness. The introduction of oaths in particular cases implies a claim to some licence in departing from the truth in other cases.

The practice which ostensibly promotes morality is thus, in fact, injurious to it. As the prohibition in Mt 5“ seems absolute, the uestion arises whether Christ would have sane- tioned the judicial use of oaths. In this connexion His own example may be pointed to when Caiaphas the high priest adjured Him by the living God that He should tell whether He was the Christ (Mt 26%), Jesus answered affirmatively without taking exception to the condition imposed. And St.

Paul sometimes calls God to witness for the truth of his assertions (2 Co 1%, Gal 1%). The will of Christ is the supreme and absolute standard of conduct, but the will can be ascertained only when regard is had to the conditions of time, place, and circumstance. The new law in Mt 5% is understood in its context. As compared with the old law which is mentioned in the previous verse, it is a concise, pointed expression of a neces- sary and enduring ὁ peaicinle.

ut error is readily incurred by generalizing or by exalting the letter above the spirit, as in the case of the other injunc- tion, ‘give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away’ (Mt 58). Im determining whether and in what cases the use of oaths is in accordance with the mind of Christ, people have to ask what conduces to the advancement of Christian righteousness in the particular situations that are contemplated. Lireratore.—W. R.

Smith, Religion of the Semites, on oath- taking and kindred practices in primitive Semitic times, esp. BP. 164 ff., 461 f.; art. Covenant in vol. i. of the present work ; he OT Theologies on the subject of Covenant ; Wendt, T'each- ing of Jesus (Eng. tr.), i. p. 269 ff.; Smend, Alttest. Religionsge- schichte2 (see Index, 8. ‘Bund’ and ‘Schwur "ἢ; Benzinger or Nowack, Heb. Archdologie, 8. ‘Eid’; Gore, Serm. on Mount. G. FERRIES. OBADIAH (39793) and a3y).—1.

The ‘steward’ or major-domo (maby wx, οἰκονόμος) of Ahab, 1 Καὶ 18% (Αβδειού). From his youth he had feared the Lorp, v.™, and, during a persecution of Jahweh’s prophets by Jezebel, Obadiah is recorded to have concealed 100 of them in caves and fed them with bread and water, v... While obeying the com- mission of Ahab to search for pasture for the perishing horses and mules, he was met by Elijah, and after some hesitation agreed to bear the pro- phet’s message to the king, v.™.

* See, further, art. MANNKR, p. 2374, note. VOL Ul —37 descended from Jeduthun, 1 Ch 9" (B ᾿Αβδειά, A ’OBi.d)=Abda of Neh 117. 3. A Judahite, 1 Ch 3 (Αβδειά). 4. A chief of the tribe of Issachar, 1 Ch 175 (B Μειβδειά [prob. a seribal error], A ᾽Οβδιά). 5 A descendant of Saul, 1 Ch 8%=9# (‘ABd(e)kd). 6. A Gadite chief who joined David at Ziklag, 1 Ch 199 (‘ASd(e)d). 1. Father of the Zebulunite chief Ishmaiah, 1 Ch 2719 (’AB4(e):o¥). 8.

One of the princes who were sent by Jehosha- phat to teach in the cities of Judah, 2Ch 177 (8 ᾿Αβιά, A’ABéid). 9. A Merarite Levite who was one of the overseers of the workmen employed by Josiah to repair the temple, 2 Ch 34" (B’ABdad, Α΄ Αβδία:). 10. The head of a family that returned with Ezra, Ezr 8° (Β ᾿Αδειά, Α ᾿Αβαδιά), called in 1 Es 8 Aba- dias. 11. One of those who sealed the covenant, Neh 105 (Αβδ(ε)ιά). 12. The eponym of a family of doorkeepers, Neh 12% (x% 'OSdlas, BAS om.) 13.

The prophet. See next article.