AS THE LORD LIVETH AND I I LIVETH

In the fourth chapter of 1 Nephi, we learn how Nephi finally obtains the plates by disguising himself as Laban and commanding Laban's servant, whose name was Zoram, to bring them to him.  After Nephi had obtained the plates, Zoram followed him out of the city.  When he recognized that Nephi was not Laban, he tried to flee. Fearing that Zoram would go to the authoritites, Nephi grabbed Zoram and held him fast.

Then Nephi did something that seems unfathomable to my western mind: he entered into an oath with Zoram.  Once Zoram declared the oath, Nephi released him, trusting completely that Zoram would not betray them. We read in Nephi 4: 32, 33, and 35:

And it came to pass that I spake with him, that if he would hearken unto my words, as the Lord liveth, and as I live, even so that if he would hearken unto our words, we would spare his life  [and that] he need not fear; that he should be a free man like unto us if he would go down in the wilderness with us.

Zoram did take courage at the words which I spake . . . and he promised that he would go down into the wilderness unto our father . . . and he also made an oath unto us that he would tarry with us from that time forth. 

I remember reading about this event when I was younger and wondering how a few simple words would be enough to bind Zoram to Lehi's family forever, such that Nephi would immediately trust him not to run away again. What was it about a seemingly simple oath that held such power?  

To answer that question, I had to learn about the power of an oath in the Semitic cultures of the Middle East.  

In our modern western society, we are best acquainted with secular oaths such as an oath of office or an oath of honesty when testimony is given in court. That oath ends with the words so help me God. What I learned was that most of the ancient oaths were given as a religious expression of fidelity to God. Even today, we have such religious oaths such as those we take in the Temple or the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. 

What I also learned is that the Hebrews were not the only ancient people who swore oaths on their lives before God.  Their neighbors, the Egyptians, swore a similar oath which they considered to be sacred. A sacred oath was called an ankh, with literally means an utterance of life, wherein an individual swore on his own life that what he said was true. (Encyclopedia Britannica: Oath)

Other ancient groups used oaths as far back as the Sumerians and Hittites, but the Egyptian ankh, like the Semitic oath, is made on ones own life. In the case of the Hebrews, it is also made on the life of God.  

In the Middle East, Arab nations still follow this practice.  In Islam today, that same oath, the qasam, is sworn before Allah on the individual's life and honor. To violate such a qasam would bring grave danger to one's soul. This knowledge helps me understand why Nephi trusted Zoram.  Zoram would rather have died than violate the oath.

The fact that this very oath, as the Lord liveth and as I liveth, is totally consistent with centuries-old oaths from the Middle East, adds to my testimony of the Book of Mormon.  I testify that Joseph Smith translated the Book from ancient Hebrew records: the knowledge of the Jews and the writing of the Egyptians.  It is full of Hebrew customs and literary form (such as plates of brass instead of brass plates.) Joseph did not write it as some critics claim. A 19th Century American farm boy would never have understood the sacred nature of this Semitic oath.  The Book of Mormon is far to internally consistent and in keeping with ancient practices of the Hebrews of that period in history.

The Book of Mormon is the Word of God, not the imagining of Joseph Smith. Of this I testify in the name of that God, even Jesus Christ.

© Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson, January 2020