Oath Making

Church Educational System

The Book of Mormon contains a number of instances where oaths were taken. Oath making was taken very seriously in Nephi’s day and culture. “The principle on which an oath is held to be binding is incidentally laid down in [Hebrews 6:16] as an ultimate appeal to divine authority to ratify an assertion. There the Almighty is represented as promising or denouncing with an oath, i.e. doing so in the most positive and solemn manner. On the same principle, that oath has always been held most binding which appealed to the highest authority, both as regards individuals and communities. As a consequence of this principle, appeals to God’s name on the one hand, and to heathen deities on the other, are treated in Scripture as tests of allegiance” (William Smith, ed., A Dictionary of the Bible [n.d.], “Oath,” 467; see also commentary for 1 Nephi 4:30–37 on page 16).

One scholar explained the power of oath making in ancient times:

“What astonishes the western reader is the miraculous effect of Nephi’s oath on Zoram, who upon hearing a few conventional words promptly becomes tractable, while as for the brothers, as soon as Zoram ‘made an oath unto us that he would tarry with us from that time forth … our fears did cease concerning him.’ (1 Ne. 4:35, 37.)
“The reaction of both parties make sense when one realizes that the oath is the one thing that is most sacred and inviolable among the desert people and their descendants: ‘Hardly will an Arab break his oath, even if his life be in jeopardy,’ for ‘there is nothing stronger, and nothing more sacred than the oath among the nomads,’ and even the city Arabs, if it be exacted under special conditions. ‘The taking of an oath is a holy thing with the Bedouins,’ says one authority. ‘Wo to him who swears falsely; his social standing will be damaged and his reputation ruined. No one will receive his testimony, and he must also pay a money fine.’
“But not every oath will do. To be most binding and solemn an oath should be by the life of something, even if it be but a blade of grass. The only oath more awful than that ‘by my life’ or (less commonly) ‘by the life of my head’ is the wa hayat Allah ‘by the life of God,’ or ‘as the Lord Liveth,’ the exact Arabic equivalent of the ancient Hebrew hai Elohim. Today it is glibly employed by the city riff raff, but anciently it was an awful thing, as it still is among the desert people. ‘I confirmed my answer in the Bedouin wise,’ says [Charles M.] Doughty. ‘By his life … he said, … “Well, swear by the life of Ullah” (God)! … I answered and thus even the nomads use, in a greater occasion, but they say by the life of thee in a little matter.’ Among both Arabs and Jews, says [Samuel] Rosenblatt, ‘an oath without God’s name is no oath,’ while ‘both in Jewish and Mohammedan societies oaths by “the life of God” are frequent.’
“So we see that the only way that Nephi could possibly have pacified the struggling Zoram in an instant was to utter the one oath that no man would dream of breaking, the most solemn of all oaths to the Semite: ‘As the Lord liveth, and as I live!’ (1 Ne. 4:32.)” (Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 2nd ed. [1964], 104–5).

Book of Mormon Student Manual (2009 Edition)

References