אָלָה
a.lah (H0423)
oath
AI Word Study
# The Hebrew Word אָלָה (alah): Oath The Hebrew word *alah* refers to an oath—a solemn, binding declaration or commitment made before God or others. With 35 occurrences in the biblical text, the term appears frequently enough to indicate its importance in ancient Israelite religious and social practice. The word carries the weight of formal speech acts where someone pledges their word or invokes consequences upon themselves if they fail to fulfill what they have stated. The prevalence of this term across 35 biblical instances suggests that oath-taking was a significant practice in ancient Israelite culture, functioning as a mechanism for establishing trust, making covenants, and ensuring accountability. The word encompasses both positive commitments (promising to do something) and negative ones (swearing to avoid something). As a formal linguistic act tied to divine witness, the oath represented one of the most serious speech acts available to biblical speakers and would have carried social and spiritual consequences for violation. Understanding *alah* as "oath" reveals how ancient Israelite society relied on sacred speech to bind individuals to their promises. The term itself, appearing repeatedly throughout scripture, underscores the cultural and religious significance of verbal commitment in a society where written contracts were less prevalent and divine oversight was invoked to guarantee human reliability.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
Then you will be clear from my oath, when you come to my relatives. If they don’t give her to you, you shall be clear from my oath.’
They said, “We saw plainly that Yahweh was with you. We said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let’s make a covenant with you,
“ ‘If anyone sins, in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, he being a witness, whether he has seen or known, if he doesn’t report it, then he shall bear his iniquity.
then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, “May Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell;
“ ‘The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall wipe them into the water of bitterness.
When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away; and the woman will be a curse among her people.
that you may enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God, and into his oath, which Yahweh your God makes with you today,
Neither do I make this covenant and this oath with you only,
and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry.
Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.
Yahweh will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.
Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you.
“If a man sins against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swears before your altar in this house;
“If a man sins against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swears before your altar in this house;
“Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on this place, and on its inhabitants, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah.
joined with their brothers, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of Yahweh our Lord, and his ordinances and his statutes;
(yes, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse);
His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and oppression. Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity.
For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, let them be caught in their pride, for the curses and lies which they utter.
Whoever is an accomplice of a thief is an enemy of his own soul. He takes an oath, but dares not testify.
Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell therein are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.
For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;
I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,
For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘As my anger and my wrath has been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you, when you enter into Egypt; and you will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and you will see this place no more.’
I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all be consumed. They will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine. They will be an object of horror, an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.
“ ‘For the Lord Yahweh says: “I will also deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
He took some of the royal offspring, and made a covenant with him. He also brought him under an oath, and took away the mighty of the land;
“ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him in the middle of Babylon he will die.
For he has despised the oath by breaking the covenant; and behold, he had given his hand, and yet has done all these things. He won’t escape.
“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘As I live, I will surely bring on his own head my oath that he has despised and my covenant that he has broken.
Yes, all Israel have transgressed your law, turning aside, that they should not obey your voice. “Therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us; for we have sinned against him.
Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land; for everyone who steals shall be cut off according to it on the one side; and everyone who swears falsely shall be cut off according to it on the other side.