Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 5:34

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 5:34 - 5:34

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 5:34 - 5:34

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34. μὴ ὀμόσαι ὅλως. The prohibition must be understood of rash and careless oaths in conversation, not of solemn asseveration in Courts of Justice.

ὅτι θρόνος ἐστὶν τοῦ θεοῦ. Such was the prevalent hypocrisy that the Jews of the day thought that they escaped the sin of perjury if in their oaths they avoided using the name of God. One of the Rabbinical sayings was ‘As heaven and earth shall pass away, so passeth away the oath taken by them.’ Our Lord shows that a false oath taken by heaven, by earth, or by Jerusalem is none the less a profanation of God’s name.

Hypocrisy reproduces itself. Louis XI. ‘admitted to one or two peculiar forms of oath the force of a binding obligation which he denied to all others, strictly preserving the secret, which mode of swearing he really accounted obligatory, as one of the most valuable of state mysteries.’ Introd. to Quentin Durward.