Matthew 5:33-37 “Again, ye have heard that it has been said to the ancients, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt render to the Lord what thou hast sworn. But *I* say unto you, Do not swear at all; neither by the heaven, because it is [the] throne of God; nor by the earth, because it is [the] footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, because it is [the] city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your word be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; but what is more than these is from evil. ” (Darby)

Hi, everyone; as you probably figured out by the time you saw “ye” in the first line, this isn't Carter. This is Chris, again. Hopefully, you don't mind too much, but I'll be writing the devotionals for this month of June, giving Carter a break. Also, hopefully you won't mind me experimenting a bit with the version I'm using- it's with Carter's permission and I'll try to compare it with the Greek before I decide to use a particular version for a particular verse- though I readily admit that I'm far from proficient in Greek, I do have two years of it freshly under my belt, and I'm continuing my studies to get better, so I don't think I'll do a terrible job. As far as I can tell with a cursory look, today's Darby translation does a more than good job. If it's a terrible problem for anyone to have a few “thees and thous,” I'll happily change versions to something without. One of the things I've learned in Greek is that it is never a good idea to place too much trust in a translation.

Anyway, this week's passage is from Matthew 5:33-37, where Jesus talks about oaths. As you've probably noticed over the last few week's Jesus is following a pattern in this part of His sermon, first citing what the “ancients” had been told, or what the audience had heard. This is the oral tradition based on the Old Testament Torah law. The specific passages the oral law is referring to when it says “Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt render to the Lord what thou hast sworn,” include Exodus 20:7, Leviticus 19:12, Numbers 30:2, and Deuteronomy 23:21-24. The oral law is actually very thorough on the subject of oaths, with an entire tractate of the Mishnah (Shevuot) devoted to oaths. According to several commentaries, part of this thoroughness was concerned with which types of oaths were binding and which weren't. In the bit of reading I did here, I did find some discussion about what types of oaths were binding and which weren't, some down to the degree of whether someone swore that he wouldn't "eat" or "eat *it*," though I didn't find any of the specific discussions on the distinctions that seem to be referenced by Jesus. There does seem to have been an opinion that swearing by (Greek en) Jerusalem was nonbinding but swearing to or into (Greek eis) Jerusalem was. (Jesus switches from en to eis when He says not to swear by Jerusalem).

Obviously, all this quibbling about exact prepositions and pronouns making an oath binding or non-binding was distasteful to Jesus. Since much of the rationale for making these distinctions comes from the idea that one shouldn't swear to God falsely, Jesus draws all of these possible things to swear to back to God. Whenever we take an oath, we are taking it before God and cannot get out of what we said by semantics and technicalities. Oaths were devised to assure someone that you are telling them the truth, not make your lie more convincing and it is a sin against God not to fulfill an oath that you swore, no matter how you swore it, as all oathtaking traces back to God.

But in all of His discourses in this part of Matthew, Jesus isn't just commanding obedience to the Old Testament Law, but is making the Law more stringent- if you thought that it was possible to follow the Old Testament Law, try following Jesus' Law. Jesus doesn't just command us to not swear falsely, but to abstain from swearing at all. It seems that, if we are telling the truth, we really shouldn't need to be swearing oaths at all, now should we? If we always tell the truth, we really never need to assure someone that we are telling the truth, do we? In fact, if we ever do swear, we really can be construed to be casting doubt on whether we are telling the truth or not when we don't swear. Swearing oaths contributes to a culture where lying is taken for granted and is thus from Satan, the Father of Lies. While, disappointingly, most commentaries disagree with me, the fact that the command not to take any oaths is confirmed in other passages such as James 5:12 shows that Jesus means exactly what He seems to mean in the English. We are not to take oaths, as taking oaths casts doubt on our truthfulness, contributes to a culture that takes lying for granted, is thus a bad testimony for Christ and is from Satan. The ultimate point and principle Jesus is communicating is that we should be truthful at all times, not ever lying.

"Oh, be careful little lips what you say,

Oh, be careful little lips what you say,

For the Father up above is looking down in love

Oh, be careful little lips what you say"

-Christopher