Psalm 15:4 · Subject · Integrity
A Costly Oath Kept
Scripture records oaths kept at a cost and oaths broken, from Israel's treaty with Gibeon to the teaching of Jesus on plain speech.
Three days after Israel's leaders swore peace to the men of Gibeon, they learned that their new allies lived next door.
who despises the vile but honors those who fear the LORD, who does not revise a costly oath,
- Books
- Psalms, Joshua, 2 Samuel, Matthew
- Hold in memory
- Numbers 30:2, Matthew 5:37
Summary
Psalm 15:4 sets among the marks of the righteous a sworn word left unchanged after it has grown expensive. The law requires every vow made to the LORD to be paid, and God Himself guarantees His promise by oath. Scripture also sets a limit, since a vow to do evil binds no one, and Herod's kept oath cost John the Baptist his life.
- Israel's leaders honoured a treaty that the Gibeonites had won from them by a lie (Joshua 9).
- The LORD named Saul's breach of that treaty as the cause of a famine in David's reign.
- Jephthah's vow is the hard case, and readers still disagree whether it bound him.
- The New Testament ends the need for oaths in plain speech, a yes that means yes.
A Word That Costs
A promise can turn into a loss, and Scripture shows what the one who made it still owes.
A promise made in good faith can turn out to cost far more than the one who made it expected. Psalm 15 sets the keeping of such a promise among the marks of the one God receives, and so the costly oath belongs to the value of integrity, where word and deed agree.
The question this study answers is what it means to keep a word that costs, and where Scripture sets its limits. It gives a table of oaths kept and broken, the oath sworn to the Gibeonites and its breach under Saul, and the law of the vow. It reads the King James wording of Psalm 15:4 and gives three questions on which readers disagree, with the voices that answer them.
Oaths Kept and Broken
Scripture judges each sworn word by what it bound the swearer to do.
Five sworn words in Scripture led to lives spared, a life taken and a hope made sure.
| Text | Who swore | What it bound him to | What followed | The Berean words |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joshua 6:22 | The two spies, to Rahab | Sparing a household in the city Israel was sent to destroy | Joshua ordered her rescue when the city fell | “bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.” |
| 2 Samuel 21:7 | David, to Jonathan | Kindness to Jonathan's house after Jonathan's death | Mephibosheth was left out of the reckoning for Saul's house | “because of the oath before the LORD between David and Jonathan son of Saul.” |
| Judges 11:39 | Jephthah, to the LORD | Whatever first came out of his door, which was his only daughter | Readers disagree on what he did to her | “he did to her as he had vowed” |
| Matthew 14:9 | Herod, to the daughter of Herodias | Whatever she asked, which was the head of John the Baptist | John was beheaded in the prison | “because of his oaths and his guests, he ordered that her wish be granted” |
| Hebrews 6:17 | God, to the heirs of the promise | His own unchanging purpose | The heirs have a hope that cannot fail | “He guaranteed it with an oath.” |
The Oath Sworn to Gibeon
Joshua 9 and 2 Samuel 21 follow one treaty from its making to its breach.
acted deceptively and set out as envoys, carrying on their donkeys worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended.Joshua records that the Gibeonites won the treaty by a lie, so the oath that follows was sworn under deceit.
The men of Israel sampled the travellers' provisions and "did not seek the counsel of the LORD" (Joshua 9:14). Joshua made a treaty of peace with them, and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them (Joshua 9:15).
But the Israelites did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn an oath to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. And the whole congregation grumbled against the leaders. All the leaders answered, “We have sworn an oath to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them. This is how we will treat them: We will let them live, so that no wrath will fall on us because of the oath we swore to them.”Their reason rests on God's name in the treaty, which counted for more than the deceit behind it.
During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the LORD. And the LORD said, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family, because he killed the Gibeonites.”The LORD Himself gives David the cause of the famine, so the breach of a treaty made in His name was His concern.
The Law of the Vow
The law and the wisdom books tell Israel to keep every vow made to God and to be slow to make one.
If a man makes a vow to the LORD or swears an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word; he must do everything he has promised.This is the rule of the law that stands behind Psalm 15:4, given through Moses for every man in Israel.
When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it, because He takes no pleasure in fools. Fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it.The Teacher speaks of the moment before a vow, where the law spoke of the moment after it.
You must not swear falsely by My name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.The command stands next to the bans on theft and deceit in Leviticus 19:11, so a false oath is one form of dishonesty.
The King James Wording
The older English of Psalm 15:4 is the wording the classic commentators expounded.
The King James Version renders the line "He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not". Wesley, Henry, Barnes and Spurgeon all wrote their notes on that wording.
Three Questions on Oaths
Readers disagree on whose loss Psalm 15:4 names, on Jephthah's vow and on whether a Christian may swear.
Whose loss does Psalm 15:4 name?John Wesley, Matthew Henry and Charles Spurgeon; Augustine of Hippo
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), glossed the hurt as "To his own damage". His example was a man who swears "that he will sell him such an estate at a price below the full worth".
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), wrote that "a man must rather suffer loss to himself and his family than wrong his neighbour by breaking his oath". He added, "An oath is a sacred thing, which we must not think to play fast and loose with."
Charles Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David (1869), wrote that when engagements turn out unprofitable, "the saints are men of honour still". He saw the pattern in Christ: "Our blessed Surety swore to his own hurt, but how gloriously he stood to his suretyship!"
Augustine of Hippo, in his Exposition on Psalm 15, read the verse from a Latin psalter that renders it as an oath sworn to a neighbour.
Both readings hold the oath binding. Wesley, Henry and Spurgeon speak of a loss to the one who swore, while Augustine's psalter speaks of a neighbour who is not deceived.
Was Jephthah bound by his vow?Ambrose of Milan and the Westminster Confession
As soon as Jephthah saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have brought great misery upon me, for I have given my word to the LORD and cannot take it back.”Jephthah believed he could not take back his word to the LORD, and that belief is the question readers weigh.
Ambrose of Milan, in On the Duties of the Clergy (book 3, chapter 12), wrote, "The vow taken by Jephtha is condemned". He judged that Jephthah made it "without thought".
Chapter 22 of the Westminster Confession says in section 4 that an oath "cannot oblige to sin; but in anything not sinful, being taken, it binds to performance, although to a man's own hurt".
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on Psalm 15:4, drew the same line. A man who has pledged himself to do a wicked thing "cannot be under obligation to execute it". Yet "he is not at liberty to violate an agreement simply because it will be a loss to him".
What the vow required of his daughter, and who holds each answer, is argued on the debate page of Jephthah's vow.
May a Christian swear an oath?The Westminster Confession; John Chrysostom
Jesus said, "But I tell you not to swear at all" (Matthew 5:34), and James wrote, "do not swear, not by heaven or earth or by any other oath" (James 5:12).
Section 2 of the Westminster Confession's chapter on oaths holds that "in matters of weight and moment, an oath is warranted by the Word of God". Its holders point to God's own oath in Hebrews 6:17 and to Jesus answering the high priest when He was charged under oath (Matthew 26:63 to 64).
John Chrysostom, in his fifteenth Homily on the Statues, urged his hearers to swear no oath at all. He wrote, "The sword is not so piercing as the nature of an oath!"
Against the first reading stand the words "or by any other oath" in James. Against the second stands Matthew 23:16 to 22, where Jesus attacks oaths by the temple, its gold, the altar and the gift as evasions, so His ban may aim at such formulas.
The Greek word for an oath in these texts is horkos, which stands ten times in the New Testament. Four of those are in Matthew, two in Hebrews 6:16 to 17 and one in James 5:12.
The study of Oaths sets out the four oaths Jesus forbids and the graded oaths of His day.
Yes and No
Matthew 5:37 makes every word a disciple speaks as binding as a sworn one.
Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ Anything more comes from the evil one.Jesus makes a plain yes and no the speech of His disciples, so the costly oath of Psalm 15 becomes every word they give.
The one who keeps an oath at a loss and the one whose yes needs no oath show the same integrity. Each lets his word stand because God hears every word.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 22, Of Lawful Oaths and Vows, sections 2 and 4.
- Ambrose of Milan, On the Duties of the Clergy, book 3, chapter 12, translated by H. de Romestin and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 10.
- John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues, homily 15, translated by W. R. W. Stephens, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 9 (1889)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), on Psalm 15:4.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Psalm 15:4.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Psalm 15:4.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, volume 1 (1869), on Psalm 15:4.
- Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 15, on verses 4 and 5.
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