Why can't you swear?
A person often uses an oath to assure someone of his words. But what is said must be taken more carefully and seriously. Watch your speech and think about your statements. The word has weight, and it can influence a person’s destiny.
The meaning of the oath can be found in the Holy Scriptures, which explains why it is harmful for an Orthodox person. When a person remembers heaven, he swears by the throne of God, to which he has no right. The earth is a support under the feet of God, and if Jerusalem, then the place where Christ lived his life. You cannot even swear on your own head, because a person cannot influence the color of his hair with just one desire.
It’s better to just say “Yes” or “No,” because the rest of the words come from the evil one.
The ancient people were told by Jesus Christ: “Do not break your oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.”
You cannot swear by people dear to your heart, by the altar, by God, because they are not under the authority of the person who gives it. He does not own them and cannot dispose of them. This is what the Lord speaks about when he asks us not to take an oath.
How to remove vows, oaths and promises from your current and past life.
AS A SUPPLEMENT:
In the name of I Am that I Am, in the name of the free Will of my Soul, I cancel the vows of past lives that I made voluntarily or unwittingly, consciously or unconsciously. I hereby sever any vows of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, poverty, celibacy or silence that I may have taken in all directions of time. I cancel any negative effects of these oaths now and forever! May this healing pass through all levels and all bodies, through all my lives, including this life, may all harm caused by connections and situations be removed, and may this healing come today, in the now! Such is the free Will of my Soul! Let it be so!
AS A SUPPLEMENT:
RENUNCIATION OF VOWS AND COMMITMENTS OF PAST LIVES
Perhaps in past lives you had to take oaths and vows (for example, monastic vows).
The most common of these are the vows of obedience, non-covetousness, celibacy, chastity, self-sacrifice, and silence. Until you free yourself from them, they will haunt you and create problems in different areas of your current life. No one can become truly free while he is burdened with the obligations of past lives. The only vows that do not oppress you are those that you choose and give to yourself. And even in this case, from time to time there is a need to review them in order to understand how they correspond to the current stage of your development.
To remove all vows and obligations from yourself and get rid of their influence on your current life, call on Archangel Raziel, who helps to cleanse yourself of the consequences of past lives. As you perform this procedure for yourself, say confidently:
“Archangel Raziel, come to my aid, since I have firmly decided to renounce the vows of suffering, self-sacrifice or self-flagellation that I have ever made. I no longer wish to suffer the consequences of these obligations. From now on and forever!
Then say these words in relation to other vows (non-covetousness, celibacy, etc.).”
AS A SUPPLEMENT:
“Prayer for release from blocking vows and oaths
Primordial Light! Great mother! Mother is alive! Highest light Hierarchies, I turn to you for help and ask you to cleanse and free me from the vows, pledges, promises, austerities, self-damages, self-curses that block me - which were created, spoken, accepted in thoughts or in writing in this life and other incarnations .
I ask you to free me from the programs of loneliness, asceticism, poverty, childlessness, lack of money, celibacy, the blocking of feelings during intimacy, the program of not having your own home, not living permanently in one place, so as not to get attached (you can add your own) that I have adopted voluntarily or forcibly current).
Lords of Karma of the planet Earth, guardian angels and archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Zadkiel, Uriel, Metatron - unravel karmic twists, bindings, cleanse me: the physical body and subtle bodies from blocking energy programs, alien and my personal, that slow me down and fetter me and create obstacles to realization, development and a healthy, fulfilling life here and now! I remove from myself all the vows of women and men of my kind taken in this and past lives for programs and scenarios of loneliness, asceticism, poverty, childlessness, lack of feelings during intimacy, lack of money, celibacy, not having your own home, not living permanently in one place so as not to get attached (add your current one).
Lords of karma of planet Earth, I ask you to cleanse all my subtle and physical bodies from the consequences of previous vows, vows, self-curses, self-damage, blocking feelings for love and self-programming of infertility, blocking feelings during intimacy, loneliness, lack of money, not having your own home, and not live permanently in one place so as not to get attached (add relevant).
I ask the guardians of the Family to help and free me and my Family from all scenarios that negatively appear in my life and all my loved ones here and now!
I bow and thank the Primordial Light, the Great Mother, the Living Mother, All the Higher light hierarchies, the Lords of karma of planet Earth, the archangels, angels and all the guardians of the Family. I accept the process of transformation here and now, here and now, here and now. Let it be so!"
I recommend reading aloud, consciously pronouncing each word - readings at a time from 3 to 12. Ideally, take this prayer for 40 days of daily reading
What is the threat of an oath to an Orthodox person?
In conversations you can often hear a person swearing by something in the desire to convince his interlocutor. Sometimes this is done so frivolously that a person does not even think about the consequences. But the word is the power with which the Lord created the world, heaven, earth and all creatures. It can either raise a person or kill him. It’s not in vain that children ask for their parents’ blessing. And the curse of the mother is considered the most murderous expression.
You need to speak, and especially swear, meaningfully, because it carries danger. For an Orthodox person, an oath is a sin if he cannot fulfill it. The Holy Scripture says that if you have made an oath, then try to fulfill it quickly, because the Lord will ask the person giving it. Otherwise, he receives punishment for an unrestrained word, causing harm to himself.
The bottom line is that a person will not have to answer for his words, and take sin on his soul, if he fulfills his promise on time. But you don’t have to swear, because if a person is telling the truth, then he doesn’t need any confirmation or persuasion. The main thing is to remain an honest person before yourself, the Lord, and people.
CONSEQUENCES OF BROKEN VOWS
Don’t take an oath and never swear by someone or something! Oaths by children, blood oaths and any other oaths are completely unacceptable. Because the consequences of broken vows can be dire.
Never try to “bargain” with God in this way: “If you, Lord, help me with this and that, then I swear later...”, etc. Never swear to God, your children or your health that you will never do something in the future (get drunk, cheat, steal, etc.), because the Higher Powers will do everything to make you break your oath . And then they will punish you for your self-confidence and blasphemy.
I will quote lines from a letter that describes this problem: “Vladimir Petrovich, when I was studying, every time before exams I fell into a panic from fear. She cried, prayed, asked for help to pass the exam “for any price,” “for any love.” Is this where my current dissatisfaction with life and with myself stems? I don’t feel love, and I myself cannot love so much that I would give my life for my beloved.”
The letter writer's assumption may be true. Any requests, prayers, oaths, appeals to the Lord, said in moments of mental shock or strong emotional intensity, can subsequently backfire on you. If you are passionately “bargaining” with the Lord (“give me this, and in return deprive me of this”, “let me get sick better than him”, “if you help me now, I promise never to do this again”, etc. .), you can get what you want, but you will certainly be punished for such a manifestation of weakness. An oath is an act of weak will. And if your will is weak, you will be provided with karmic lessons to strengthen it through trials. It's simple.
Even if you try your best not to do what you promised the Lord not to do, the Higher powers will certainly create conditions under which you will be forced to break your oath. And then, of course, there will be retribution and consequences. For example, a woman turns to God with a prayer: “God, make sure that my husband does not find out about my infidelity, and I swear by my health (or something else) that in the future I will never cheat on him again!” As a result, this time the husband will miraculously not notice his horns, but soon the Higher Powers will cunningly lead the woman to another betrayal, and then she will get what she deserves in full: her husband will give her a kick in the right direction, and she will lose her health. According to your agreement.
Any bargaining with the Lord is a manifestation of weakness of will and fear of some kind of test or punishment, but such weaknesses “up there” are not welcomed, and retribution is inevitable. Don't be fooled! If you are trying to prove to a person that you didn’t do something and start swearing, then this is, in principle, allowed, but only if you are telling the truth. If you lie and try to impress someone with your “cool” oath, you will definitely be punished, so don’t risk things like that.
Next, I will give a letter that quite convincingly talks about the negative consequences of “bargaining with the Lord.” “Hello, Vladimir Petrovich! I want to ask you for help for my mother and my nephew. About 2 years ago, my nephew got sick, and very seriously. As a result of antibiotics, the boy's platelets decreased and internal bleeding occurred; he was 4 years old. The boy was taken to the hospital and his grandmother (my mother), due to strong anxiety, said: “Lord, let him get well, it’s better if they take my voice away!” The nephew spent a long time in the hospital, then he was discharged, but was treated with hormonal drugs. The crisis has passed, but his platelets periodically decrease. We are saving ourselves with saphora (we read about it in the newspaper), but we don’t know how to cure him. After all, a person is just beginning to live. And since then my mother began to wheeze. At first they thought that she had a bad cold and that it was after a strong cough, then they wrote it off as a reaction to her false teeth. So a year has passed, mom can no longer swallow food, her speech is completely incomprehensible, her voice is hoarse, she gets tired of squeezing sounds out of herself. However, otherwise she feels good. We were examined in different hospitals and made many diagnoses, from encephalitis to osteochondrosis. The doctors thought that blood vessels or nerves were pinched somewhere and injected vasodilators, but nothing helped. The doctors didn’t really say anything, they gave me the 2nd group of disability. Mom’s tongue almost doesn’t obey her, no one understands her speech, she almost can’t eat. She doesn't talk, but hums. She did not have a stroke, her thyroid gland is also fine. We remembered those words of hers, and it seems to us that my mother’s illness did not appear by chance and medications will not help here. Vladimir Petrovich, tell me what we should do?”
Well, your nephew can probably be helped, or at least you can try. But the situation with your mother, to be honest, is very bad. Such emotional vows or appeals to the Lord in the spirit of: “It would be better for me to do this than...” tend to realize the expressed wishes in reality. A clear program is formed in the astral world, and the Higher Powers, as a rule, force this program to work in order to punish the “customer”. You can ask the Higher Powers, the Lord for healing or some kind of help, but in no case and under any circumstances should you demand evil, even for yourself. Never offer the Lord deals like: “Save so-and-so, better punish me!” They will punish you in any way possible! The above letter clearly illustrates the danger of such words and requests. Unfortunately, it is hardly possible to help this elderly woman. The only chance for her to be cured is for her to sincerely repent of her words (only without the reservations that she wished her grandson to be healthy, etc.), and ask the Lord for forgiveness and healing.
I will repeat again and again: avoid making any oaths and vows for the future. Under no circumstances use the expressions: “I swear on my health,” “I swear on the Lord,” “I swear on my children,” etc. Such vows often serve as a kind of trump card when sorting out relationships with lovers, and you can use them to impress the person you need and win this battle, but then you will lose the war, no doubt about it! With your oaths, you simply provoke certain forces to produce such circumstances so that your oaths turn against you or against your loved ones. Below is another example of such an unacceptable vow.
“Ever since I’ve been living in the village, I’ve been very sick and have had two surgeries. There used to be a good harvest, but now we don’t even harvest a third of what we had before. After the second operation, I wanted to turn to traditional healers, but before that I made a vow to God that I would completely entrust my life to him and would not turn to any healers. Will it turn out that I will betray the Lord?
Well, about the “betrayal of the Lord,” you are, of course, exaggerating, but now you really cannot turn to representatives of traditional medicine for help. An oath to the Lord is a serious thing, especially if you made your vow in a state of strong emotional excitement. However, people, being in a calm and peaceful mood, usually do not make such oaths. Break it, you will not escape trouble!
Another common problem with impermissible vows and pledges concerns promises to a deceased spouse not to remarry. I have repeatedly encountered the situation described in the following letter when seeing patients: “Four years ago, my husband died (he hanged himself). I loved him very much, but I couldn’t save him. And so, in my grief, I wrote a letter and left it in my husband’s jacket pocket, and before that I carried it with me for a day. In the letter, I asked for forgiveness for everything that I might have been guilty of before my husband, I promised never to be intimate with anyone and never to get married. Now I have a man, we are dating, but I started dreaming about my husband. He doesn’t talk to me, doesn’t call me anywhere, he just dreams. Please advise me something. Maybe I really shouldn’t have dated a man if I wrote such a letter?”
General recommendations are of little use in this case; the author of the letter needs a personal visit to a specialist. The problem is indeed serious. Under no circumstances should you put any letters, oaths, or, especially, your photographs “as a souvenir” in the coffin. It is very difficult to deal with the negative consequences of such actions. The situation described in the letter is further complicated by the fact that the woman's ex-husband committed suicide. The souls of suicides are usually tied to our material world for a long time, and while they themselves suffer, they often do not leave their former relatives, especially their spouses, alone. It has long been noticed that when the wife of a suicide tries to improve her personal life, her late husband begins to appear to her in a dream (and not only in a dream!). And in this case, there was also a letter that gives the deceased a reason to count on the lifelong fidelity of his ex-wife.
It is appropriate to give another story of this kind here. One of my patients, whose husband hanged himself after a family quarrel, told me in horror that when a certain young man began to seriously court her, her late husband began to dream about... her boyfriend! An important point: the young man did not know about the suicide story at all, and had never seen the deceased either during his lifetime or in a photo. But the description of the man seen in dreams extremely accurately matched the appearance of the late husband. Thus, the oath of fidelity gives the soul of the deceased a reason not to allow new gentlemen to approach his wife.
In conclusion, I once again want to warn my readers against making any oaths and pledges, especially “in the name of the Lord”!
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Joshua fulfilled the oath that Moses swore
In the twelfth chapter of the book of Joshua, a descendant of Judah, Caleb, comes to him. He reports that Moses once swore an oath:
Joshua 14:9
“The land on which your feet have walked will be an inheritance for you and your children forever, for you have faithfully followed the Lord my God.”
But Moses is dead, so Caleb's fears can be understood. The Prophet died without keeping his oath. Caleb's entire hope is in Joshua's integrity.
In doing so, we can see that the words of Moses are equated with the words of God. Joshua fulfills the promise that Moses made and allocates the required land to Caleb.
The Old Testament custom allowed the Jews to swear, as Joseph did
An oath is a solemn promise to do or not to do something depending on the situation. Also, an oath is an assurance of the authenticity of a particular fact.
The oath implies that if a person’s words do not match his deeds, some kind of punishment will befall him. Usually this is deprivation of what they swore, so they swear by something expensive in order, based on the risk they have taken, to confirm the seriousness of their statement.
There are many examples in the Old Testament of people swearing:
Life 47:29
“And the time came for Israel to die, and he called his son Joseph and said to him: If I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and swear that you will show me mercy and righteousness, and will not bury me in Egypt.”
An oath carried more weight than a promise. In fact, taking an oath from Joseph was the surest option available to dying Israel. And his desire to be buried in his native land is an old tradition, known since prehistoric times.
It happened that travelers even carried with them their native land, or the bones of their ancestors. Burial next to parents and grandfathers was the most important culmination of life for ancient peoples.
The elderly Jacob took an oath from his son Joseph to bury him in his native land. In Rembrandt's painting, Jacob blesses Joseph's sons Manasseh and Ephraim shortly before his death
That is why Israel acts so harshly, demanding an oath from Joseph in order to die calm for his posthumous fate.
But at the same time, it is symptomatic that Israel was not satisfied with a simple promise, but considered it necessary to put its son under strict conditions of an oath. However, he himself, as we remember, was not very sincere with his father when he received his blessing by deception, and he encountered the same attitude from his children.
Priest Afanasy Gumerov, resident of the Sretensky Monastery, answers:
An oath is an assurance to another of the truth of what is said or done. The Hebrew text of the Bible uses two words: shevua (Gen. 21:31) and ala (26:28). The one who swore called on God to be a witness to what he was saying (Deut. 10:1-22). This custom was enshrined in the law of Moses: “Fear the Lord your God, and serve Him alone, and cleave to Him and swear by His name” (Deut. 10.20). The sacred books of the Old Testament contain many examples of establishing agreements using an oath.
“And the time came for Israel to die, and he called his son Joseph, and said: If I have found favor in your sight, lay your hand on my thigh and swear that you will show me mercy...” (Gen. 47:29) " “And Moses swore on that day and said: “The ground on which your foot has walked…” (Joshua 14:9). “David swore and said, “Your father knows well...” (1 Samuel 20:3). “The king will rejoice in God, everyone who swears by Him will be praised, for the lips that speak lies will be stopped” (Ps. 63:12). The passages cited are enough to see that this custom of taking an oath in itself did not contain anything sinful. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior abolished this Old Testament rite because he gave a new law - a spiritual one. Now the witness of fidelity in the fulfillment of what was said is conscience (glorious conscience, co-messenger) - the voice of God in man. According to the words of the Apostle: “I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience bears witness to me in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 9.1). Let us cite other passages from the Epistles of St. ap. Paul: “God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that I make constant mention of you” (Rom. 1.9), “I call God to be a witness against my soul, that, sparing you, I have not hitherto come to Corinth” ( 2 Cor. 1:23), “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, blessed forever, knows that I do not lie” (2 Cor. 11:31), “God is witness that I love you all with the love of Jesus Christ” ( Phil.1:8), “For we never had before you any words of flattery, as you know, nor any form of self-interest: God is my witness!” (1 Thess. 2:5). “And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the earth lifted up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created the heaven and everything that is in it, the earth and everything that is in it, and the sea and everything that is in it. in it, that there will be no more time” (Rev. 10:5-6). Jesus Christ with the words “do not swear” abolished a specific Old Testament rite, for conscience becomes a witness to the faithfulness of the word or deed.
Jews were supposed to swear by the name of God, but this is not allowed for Christians
An interesting verse on the subject of oaths can be found in the Bible:
Ps.62:12
“The king will rejoice in God, everyone who swears by Him will be praised, for the lips that speak lies will be stopped.”
From this we understand that to the question of whether it is possible to swear by God, humanity was once given the answer: “Yes.” However, this point is not covered by most commentators. And those interpretations that exist contradict each other.
Theology teacher William MacDonald believes that this verse is about pledging allegiance to God:
William MacDonald
President of Emmaus Bible College, theologian
“I will continue to live, receiving joy from communication with God. In fact, everyone who swears allegiance to Him will rejoice, while those who love unrighteousness will remain silent.”
But the New Geneva Bible, on the contrary, is sure that it is about an oath by God. And he even gives a more accurate translation - “swearing in God’s name”:
“The king will rejoice in God; everyone who swears by His name will praise Him. God's justice will triumph. Those who love God will exalt their praises to Him, while the wicked will remain silent.”
King David in the psalms promises that anyone who swears in the name of God will be praised (according to another interpretation, in the name of David himself).
But Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus understands the verse in such a way that one must swear not by God, but by King David:
Theodoret of Cyrus
Bishop of Cyrus, theologian
“Finally, everyone will freely call him king and swear by his salvation, no longer afraid of slanderers, whose lips have become blocked by death. For during Saul’s life they were afraid to speak with David, but after his death everyone fearlessly gave him the honor due to a king, and began to swear by the king’s salvation, setting it up for themselves as an honor and a chance to gain favor.”
Euthymius Zigabenus agrees with Theodoret of Cyrus and even refers to an ancient custom:
Evfimy Zigaben
Byzantine theologian and exegete
“The subject peoples used to swear by their king and say: health to the king! that I didn’t do this, with the pronunciation and other similar words. But while Saul was alive, whoever dared to swear by the life and health of David became guilty and exposed his life to danger; and after the death of Saul, whoever swore by the life and health of King David, he greatly boasted of having discovered a partnership with him.”
Perhaps in this case he is right. But the Jewish tradition of swearing in the name of God did exist:
Vtrz 6:13
“Fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him [alone], and cleave to Him, and swear by His name.”
In any case, taking oaths was the custom of the Old Testament Jews. A lot has changed for Christians. So there is no point in relying on these traditions.
