Our Lord Himself gives other examples of such casuistical distinctions in the matter of oaths in Mt 23i''-22. He refers to them here because the full import of His prohibition of oaths might not l)e realized by those who were familiar with such dis- tinctions. It might be thought that He was merely forbidding a direct appeal to the name of Jehovah. And so He proceeds to show how utterly different \ IS His standpoint on the question of oaths from that of the Rabbinical authorities. They en- I
deavoured to empty the oath of reference to God, so as to narrow the scope of the commandment against perjury. Christ sought to make explicit the. reference to God virtually contained in every asseveration, so as to widen the scope of His pro- hibition of swearing. With this object He takes •some of the common forms of oaths which were regarded as less binding, and shows how, though the name of God be not ex^iressly mentioned, they are meaningless unless they involve an appeal to Him. Thus to call heaven or earth to Avitness our statement is an empty form, unless we be thinking not merely of heaven or earth, but of the Power they suggest, who will punish unfaithfulness (vv.-^*- ^^), i.e. GtoA, of whom heaven is the throne and earth the footstool (Is 66'). To appeal to Jerusa- lem (v. 2''') is meaningless unless we be thinking of the great King, who has made Jerusalem His city (Ps 48^). And to swear by one's head (v.^") involves an appeal to Him in whose hands our destiny lies, and who alone can bring upon our heads the punish- ment of perjury. For ourselves, we cannot make one hair black or white. Black hair is here used as the symbol of youth ; white, of old age. The very colour of our hair, Christ would say, reminds us that we are in the hands of a higher Power. It is to that Power we appeal when we swear by the life of our head. Every form of asseveration, then, Christ concludes, every appeal to anything beside us in confirmation of our word, is an oath, for it virtually involves an appeal to God. All such forms come under Christ's prohibition. His com- mand is : ' Swear not at all ; but let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay' (vv.***^').
These last words have received different interj^re- tations. Beza renders them, ' Let your affirma- tion be yea, and your negation nay,' — an attempt to bring the present verse into harmony with .Ja 5'- at the sacrifice of grammar. Equally unjustifiable grammatically is Grotius' attempt to secure the same object by his translation, ' Let your yea and nay of speech correspond to a yea and nay of fact,' with the additional fault that it is question able whether that is the meaning of the passage in James. The simplest way of taking the words is to regard the val vai, oi) oS, as a repetition, such as was common in actual speech (cf. 2 K 10^', 2 Co P"), to confirm a statement. ' Let your speech,' saj's
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Christ, ' be a cleai' and forcible yes or no. For whatsoever is more than these,' He continues, ' Cometh €k rod irov-rjpov.^ Again there is difference of opinion as to these last words. Many take them as equivalent to e/c rod 8iajS6\ov. But B. Weiss {Matthdusevangdium, ad loc.) contends that such a view is incompatible with the fact that the OT requires oaths (Ex 22^^), and even puts them into the mouth of God (Gn 22i« 26^). It is better to take tlie irovi^pov as the gen. of the neuler ; so that the statement will mean that the oath springs from evil, either in the sense that it is the presence of evil in the world that leads to the oath in confirma- tion of one's word, and that in the Kingdom of God, in which truth prevails, the oath must alto- gether disappear (so Weiss), or that the practice of confirming one's statement by an oath springs from the tacit assumption that when one does not so conhrm it, one is not bound to speak the truth (so Weudt, Lchre Jesu, ii. 210).
Before i)roceeding to discuss the conclusion to be drawn from the passage, we must note an inter- pretation of vv.^''"'"' which has gained considerable acceptance, but which puts quite a different mean- ing upon Christ's prohibition in v.'''* from what we have given above. It is suggested that the pro- hibition is not meant to embrace all oaths, but merely the thoughtless swearing of everyday life whereby the name of God is profaned (so Calvin, Ewald, Tholuck, and many others). The ofioaai SXcjs of v.^^, it is contended, does not include swear- ing by God ; for, as Ewald {Die drei ersten Evan- gelkn, p. 267) says, that was done only in courts of law, and Christ is not referring to this at all. If He had meant to forbid oaths absolutely, He would certainly have mentioned the direct oath in which the name of God is expresslj' invoked. As He has not done so, we must conclude that His prohibition is not meant to apply to it, i.e. that He means to forbid only such thoughtless oaths of common life as He proceeds to exemplify.