Jeremiah 23:1-8, As the LORD lives!

This is a bit of an “appendix” to our study of the names of God.  I wanted to key in on one practical and interesting area of application. 

Deuteronomy 6:13 says one thing Israel would be able to do, given her special relationship with God, is to take oaths in His name.  There was a standard way Israel did this, using the phrase, as the LORD lives.  Here are some illustrations.

·       Gideon with his enemies: As the LORD lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you (Judges 8:19).

·       Boaz with Ruth: I will perform the duty for you, as the LORD lives (Ru. 3:13).

·       David showed his faith in God, when running from Saul, by an oath: As the lives the LORD shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish (1 Sam. 26:10).

·       A Philistine ruler, Achish, used it in 1 Sam. 29:6.

·       Elisha used it several times with Elijah in 2 Ki. 2:2-6.

·       Even Caiaphas used this with Christ: I put you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God (Mt. 26:63).  You will notice that Jesus, who had been silent, gave Caiaphas an answer (v64).

Even God makes oaths, as He did with Abraham (Deut. 7:8).  This tells us that taking an oath is not, in itself, a confession that your word is not normally good, unless you swear it with an oath.  In Matthew 5:33-37 Jesus addressed this in the Sermon on the Mount.  He addressed the way it was in His day.  The Jews devised a scheme where some oaths were more important, depending on the basis of the oath.  Maybe something in heaven carried more weight than something on earth.  He made it clear that our word, in any circumstance, should be reliable.

But in Israel, in OT times, taking your oaths in the name of the LORD was acknowledging your accountability to Him as well as your trust in Him to bring about the subject of the oath.  It was a part of Israel’s testimony to the nations.  Other nations swore by their god or gods; Israel swore by the name of the LORD. 

An illustration of this is in today’s passage.  In OT Israel, it was common, when speaking of God’s greatness, to harken back to how He delivered Israel from Egypt.  Even the nations around Israel were aware of the story and attributed to the LORD greatness because of it.  But in the future there will be an even greater deliverance and gathering of Israel.  Perhaps the gathering itself is ongoing now.  But in the day that Israel truly comes to the LORD and realizes that it is His work and not theirs in bringing them into the land, they will say: ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’  And they shall dwell in their own land.  Israel’s regathering is a testimony to the faithfulness and power of the LORD!