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For men verily swear by the greater: for here is only narrative, introducing the amplification of the argument drawn from God’s promise and oath, for the quickening those and all believers to make out after the full assurance of hope, the promise and oath of God concerning them as well as Abraham. That since men’s oaths procure credit, and put an end to doubts, strife, and contradiction amongst them; much more should God’s oath put an end to doubts and gainsayings of creatures, and make them to give faith to him: men are not inventors and authors of this ordinance of swearing, but subject to God’s precept requiring this from them, and in this special part of God’s worship instituted by him, they ought to swear justly and according to his will; and swear they must by God only, who knows the intentions and secrets of the heart, and who is absolutely greater than all; the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and sovereign Lord of all persons, who knows false swearers, and inflicts on them not only temporal but eternal punishments. The swearing by any other, God rebukes, Deu_6:13 Jer_4:2.
And an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife: and in this special part of God’s worship, God is called in as a co-witness of the truth of what is sworn, and as a judge and avenger of it, if it be otherwise: and so the oath becomes a confirmation of faith and confidence of men one in another, and of love accompanying the same; so that if strife, doubt, suspicion, or jealousy arise among them about either words or deeds, which are not known to those who doubt, and cannot be cleared by sense or reason, or any other way but by a testimony of some person who knows them, which being insufficient of itself, he calls in God by an oath as co-witness, with whom it is supposed he would not break his interest, nor invocate him against himself, by declaring what is false: on this all strife and contradiction is to be decided among men, and to cease, and so the controversy to be determined.