Matthew 5:33-37
The prohibition against taking the name of Jehovah in vain included a
prohibition against pledging to do something with God as a witness and
then failing to do it. For example, a person might pledge to give
some, probably pricey, animal offering to the Temple in return for
favor from God, only to renege later. Such an oath was held to be
binding. But scholars have found that Jewish legalists had decided
that any oath given by heaven or earth was not binding. Neither was an
oath by Jerusalem, though an oath toward Jerusalem was binding (presumably
because God resided inside the Temple's Holy of Holies).
33 You also know that in the old days people said, You must not make a false vow, but must do what you have promised the Lord. [YN.1][YN.2]
34 But what I say is: do not make oaths at all. Do not swear by heaven, for it is God's throne,
35 nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
36 Nor should you swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair black or white.
37 Let your communication be: "yes, yes" or "no, no." Anything beyond that comes from evil.
Jesus, ever focused on motive, is saying that such legalistic evasions don't work, as everything has the hand of God on it and in it. The "material world" is in fact holy – if we could only see that. In fact, what is the point of binding yourself in an oath to God? Should you not already be bound to do the next right thing? In particular, Jesus was guiding his new disciples on how they should behave once they had received the Holy Spirit.
Just say yes or no; everything else is rooted in evil, or, that is, in the fear and doubt that plagues the insecure mind.
Some have wondered about the double affirmation and negation in Matthew 5:37.
Use of repetition here is, I suggest, not meant for much more than emphasis. Perhaps the idea is that the person should mean what he says, as when responding to someone who asks more than once. That is, don't give a casual yes or no but be serious about your response.
Yet I don't think we should read too much into the reading yes, yes as opposed to simply yes. The point has been made. Swearing an oath means that you are pledging not to lie or to wiggle out of your promise. But why would you need to give such assurances?
The biblically conscious writers of the U.S. Constitution were careful to permit citizens, in legal matters, to give either an oath or an affirmation. A citizen is not required to solemnly swear. He may say, I affirm... or use words that mean I affirm.
On examining relevant Old Testament passages, we run up against a minor puzzle.
Deuteronomy 6:13
From this, it might appear that Jesus is abolishing the law as stated in Deuteronomy 6:13
and 10:20 because Israelites seem to be commanded to swear by God's name. Yet, the import appears to have been
"don't use a name of any God but Jehovah when making oaths." In fact, where the King James version gives the capitalized word LORD, God's name Jehovah is meant. (Ancient Jews declined to translate that name from Hebrew into any other language.)
Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.Deutoronomy 10:20
Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.
In other words, though the swear by his name phrase sounds like an order, it need not be taken as one. In fact, the Septuagint, a Greek translation of Scriptures, makes this point.
Scholars debate whether Jesus and other Palestinian Jews commonly used the Septuagint or Scriptures that had been translated into Aramaic from the Septuagint. Most New Testament quotations of Scripture are based on the Septuagint.
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