Isaiah 44:5

44:5 One will say, ‘I belong to the Lord,’

and another will use ¹  the name ‘Jacob.’

One will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’

and use the name ‘Israel.’” ² 

Isaiah 45:23

45:23 I solemnly make this oath ³  –

what I say is true and reliable: ⁴ 

‘Surely every knee will bow to me,

every tongue will solemnly affirm; ⁵ 

Isaiah 65:16

65:16 Whoever pronounces a blessing in the earth ⁶ 

will do so in the name of the faithful God; ⁷ 

whoever makes an oath in the earth

will do so in the name of the faithful God. ⁸ 

For past problems will be forgotten;

I will no longer think about them. ⁹ 

Deuteronomy 5:28

5:28 When the Lord heard you speaking to me, he ¹⁰  said to me, “I have heard what these people have said to you – they have spoken well.

Deuteronomy 6:13

6:13 You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name.

Deuteronomy 10:20

10:20 Revere the Lord your God, serve him, be loyal to him and take oaths only in his name.

Psalms 63:11

63:11 But the king ¹¹  will rejoice in God;

everyone who takes oaths in his name ¹²  will boast,

for the mouths of those who speak lies will be shut up. ¹³ 

Zephaniah 1:5

1:5 I will remove ¹⁴  those who worship the stars in the sky from their rooftops, ¹⁵ 

those who swear allegiance to the Lord ¹⁶  while taking oaths in the name of ¹⁷  their ‘king,’ ¹⁸ 

¹ tn The Hebrew text has a Qal verb form, “and another will call by the name of Jacob.” With support from Symmachus (an ancient Greek textual witness), some read the Niphal, “and another will be called by the name of Jacob.”

² tn Heb “and by the name of Israel he will title.” Some, with support from several ancient versions, prefer to change the Piel (active) verb form to a Pual (passive), “and he will be titled by the name of Israel.”

³ tn Heb “I swear by myself”; KJV, NASB “have sworn.”

⁴ tn Heb “a word goes out from my mouth [in] truth and will not return.”

⁵ tn Heb “swear” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “confess allegiance.”

⁶ tn Or “in the land” (NIV, NCV, NRSV). The same phrase occurs again later in this verse, with the same options.

⁷ tn Heb “will pronounce a blessing by the God of truth.”

⁸ tn Heb “will take an oath by the God of truth.”

⁹ tn Heb “for the former distresses will be forgotten, and they will be hidden from my eyes.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “He” in 5:3.

¹¹ sn The psalmist probably refers to himself in the third person here.

¹² tn Heb “who swears [an oath] by him.”

¹³ tn The Niphal of this verb occurs only here and in Gen 8:2, where it is used of God “stopping” or “damming up” the great deep as he brought the flood to an end.

¹⁴ tn The words “I will remove” are repeated from v. 4b for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 4b-6 contain a long list of objects for the verb “I will remove” in v. 4b. In the present translation a new sentence was begun at the beginning of v. 5 in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences.

¹⁵ tn Heb “those who worship on their roofs the host of heaven.” The “host of heaven” included the sun, moon, planets, and stars, all of which were deified in the ancient Near East.

¹⁶ tc The MT reads, “those who worship, those who swear allegiance to the Lord.” The original form of the LXX omits the phrase “those who worship”; it may have been accidentally repeated from the preceding line. J. J. M. Roberts prefers to delete as secondary the phrase “those who swear allegiance” (J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 168).

¹⁷ tn Heb “those who swear by.”

¹⁸ tn The referent of “their king” is unclear. It may refer sarcastically to a pagan god (perhaps Baal) worshiped by the people. Some English versions (cf. NEB, NASB, NRSV) prefer to emend the text to “Milcom,” the name of an Ammonite god (following some LXX mss, Syriac, and Vulgate) or “Molech,” a god to whom the Israelites offered their children (cf. NIV, NLT). For a discussion of the options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 75-77.