Daily Devotional for Wednesday, July 19

A Foolish Oath

“Then answered one of the people, and said, Thy father straitly charged the people with an oath, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food this day. And the people were faint,” (1 Samuel 14:28).

Have you ever made a promise that you could not keep, or at least did not want to keep? I think everyone has sworn they would do something that they either did not do or later regretted making such an oath. King Saul made such an oath as this by telling the soldiers that they could not eat anything until the evening though they had fought and were tired and lacked energy (1 Samuel 14:24). The problem was that his son Jonathan had eaten some honey not knowing the oath that his father had made and one of the soldiers tells him. Jonathan points out that had his father not made the oath, that they would have been able to be more victorious that day than they already had (1 Samuel 14:27-31). 

What would king Saul ultimately do about his son breaking this foolish oath; would he go through with what he had said? King Darius of Babylon faced the same dilemma with Daniel because of a foolish decree he had made but had to follow through and put Daniel in the lion’s den (Daniel 6:10-14). Thankfully, God had other plans for Daniel and thankfully the people would not allow Jonathan to be killed though Saul said he would be (1 Samuel 14:45). The lesson we should learn is that we should be very careful not to make such foolish oaths in our lives in the first place “But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation,” (James 5:12).

REFLECTION: We all have some regrets in our life, hopefully they are not for foolish oaths we made without God’s guidance.

Tim Chambers