Isaiah 19:18

19:18 At that time five cities ¹  in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord who commands armies. One will be called the City of the Sun. ² 

Isaiah 45:23-25

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 

45:24 they will say about me,

“Yes, the Lord is a powerful deliverer.”’” ⁶ 

All who are angry at him will cower before him. ⁷ 

45:25 All the descendants of Israel will be vindicated by the Lord

and will boast in him. ⁸ 

Isaiah 48:1

The Lord Appeals to the Exiles

48:1 Listen to this, O family of Jacob, ⁹ 

you who are called by the name ‘Israel,’

and are descended from Judah, ¹⁰ 

who take oaths in the name of the Lord,

and invoke ¹¹  the God of Israel –

but not in an honest and just manner. ¹² 

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 ¹³  will rejoice in God;

everyone who takes oaths in his name ¹⁴  will boast,

for the mouths of those who speak lies will be shut up. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 12:16

12:16 But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. ¹⁶  Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. ¹⁷  But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” ¹⁸  If they do these things, ¹⁹  then they will be included among the people I call my own. ²⁰ 

Zephaniah 1:5

1:5 I will remove ²¹  those who worship the stars in the sky from their rooftops, ²² 

those who swear allegiance to the Lord ²³  while taking oaths in the name of ²⁴  their ‘king,’ ²⁵ 

Romans 14:11

14:11 For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God.” ²⁶ 

Philippians 2:11

2:11 and every tongue confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord

to the glory of God the Father.

[19:18]  ¹ sn The significance of the number “five” in this context is uncertain. For a discussion of various proposals, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:376-77.

[19:18]  ² tc The Hebrew text has עִיר הַהֶרֶס (’ir haheres, “City of Destruction”; cf. NASB, NIV) but this does not fit the positive emphasis of vv. 18-22. The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a and some medieval Hebrew mss read עִיר הָחֶרֶס (’ir hakheres, “City of the Sun,” i.e., Heliopolis). This reading also finds support from Symmachus’ Greek version, the Targum, and the Vulgate. See HALOT 257 s.v. חֶרֶס and HALOT 355 s.v. II חֶרֶס.

[45:23]  ³ tn Heb “I swear by myself”; KJV, NASB “have sworn.”

[45:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “a word goes out from my mouth [in] truth and will not return.”

[45:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “swear” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “confess allegiance.”

[45:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “‘Yes, in the Lord,’ one says about me, ‘is deliverance and strength.’”

[45:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “will come to him and be ashamed.”

[45:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “In the Lord all the offspring of Israel will be vindicated and boast.”

[48:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV, CEV “people of Israel.”

[48:1]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text reads literally “and from the waters of Judah came out.” מִמֵּי (mimme) could be a corruption of מִמְּעֵי (mimmÿ’e, “from the inner parts of”; cf. NASB, NIV, NLT, NRSV) as suggested in the above translation. Some translations (ESV, NKJV) retain the MT reading because the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, which corrects a similar form to “from inner parts of” in 39:7, does not do it here.

[48:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “cause to remember”; KJV, ASV “make mention of.”

[48:1]  ¹² tn Heb “not in truth and not in righteousness.”

[63:11]  ¹³ sn The psalmist probably refers to himself in the third person here.

[63:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “who swears [an oath] by him.”

[63:11]  ¹⁵ 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.

[12:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the ways of my people.” For this nuance of the word “ways” compare 10:2 and the notes there.

[12:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “taught my people to swear by Baal.”

[12:16]  ¹⁸ tn The words “I swear” are not in the text but are implicit to the oath formula. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:16]  ¹⁹ tn The words “If they do this” are not in the text. They are part of an attempt to break up a Hebrew sentence which is long and complex into equivalent shorter sentences consistent with contemporary English style. Verse 16 in Hebrew is all one sentence with a long complex conditional clause followed by a short consequence: “If they carefully learn the ways of my people to swear by name, ‘By the life of the Lord,’ as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.” The translation strives to create the same contingencies and modifications by breaking up the sentence into shorter sentences in accord with contemporary English style.

[12:16]  ²⁰ tn Heb “they will be built up among my people.” The expression “be built up among” is without parallel. However, what is involved here is conceptually parallel to the ideas expressed in Isa 19:23-25 and Zech 14:16-19. That is, these people will be allowed to live on their own land, to worship the Lord there, and to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts. To translate literally would be meaningless or misleading for many readers.

[1:5]  ²¹ 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.

[1:5]  ²² 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.

[1:5]  ²³ 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).

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “those who swear by.”

[1:5]  ²⁵ 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.

[14:11]  ²⁶ sn A quotation from Isa 45:23.