Yahweh

Yahweh

Covenants

Covenant with Abraham

Oaths were taken very seriously in the ancient world, and rituals were fulfilled in order to officiate them. The ritual conducted in Genesis chapter 15, where Abraham split certain animals in half and the essence of Yahweh passed between them, was one such ritual officiating an oath, and there are Mesopotamian inscriptions revealing that very ritual to have been a custom of the people at that time. However swearing oaths to men, one must compromise one's allegiance to God. Therefore Christians should not swear oaths at all. At James 5:12 the apostle wrote:

“But before all, my brethren, do not swear, not even on heaven nor on the earth nor any other oath, but it must be from you the yes “Yes” and the no “No”, in order that you would not fall under judgment.”

For this reason, Christians for many centuries refused to consider contracts or allegiances. Rather, they conducted all of their business on a handshake and their word, where yes was yes and no was no.

Kingship

Job chapter 34 discusses the righteous judgement of God, and verse 30 expresses the hope: “That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.” In the old kingdom, the role of the king was as the ultimate judge of the people, and we see as much in the prayer of Solomon upon his becoming king, at 1 Kings 3:9 where he said: “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?” It says at 1 Kings 7:7: “Then he made a porch for the throne where he might judge, even the porch of judgment: and it was covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other.”

When our people rejected Yahweh as King, we invited hypocritical human judgement upon ourselves, and have been naturally punished by it ever since. One of the promises of Christianity is that Christ be our judge, and then we shall all be judged fairly, before God who knows all, and not before man whose judgement is clouded and partial and whose knowledge is incomplete.