5:34a

But I tell you: The clause But I tell you also occurs in 5:22a, 5:28a, and 5:32a. Translate it here as you did there.

not to swear at all: This clause means “Do not make an oath at any time.”

Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

don’t swear an oath at all (God’s Word)
-or-
make no vow at all

Jesus was not against promises. He was against making promises using the name of God and substitutes for God’s name. See below.

5:34b–36a

The Jews took seriously an oath made in God’s name. They thought that if someone made an oath in God’s name, and then broke that oath, God would punish him. To get around this, they made oaths using substitutes for God’s name.

Each of the clauses in 5:34b–5:36a refers to commonly used substitutes for making an oath in Jewish culture. The four items, heaven, earth, Jerusalem, and one’s head, are all closely associated with God. Jews thought that an oath made using the name of one of them is powerful, but less serious than using the name of God himself. However, the Greek grammar indicates that Jesus prohibited using any of these names.

5:34b

either by heaven: The word either indicates the first of a list of examples for “not to swear at all” from 5:34a. It may be more natural in your language to repeat some of the words or include some implied information. For example:

⌊For example,⌋ do not ⌊make an oath⌋ using the word “heaven”

heaven: Here the word heaven refers to the place where God lives. This word also occurs in 5:16.

for: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as for introduces the basis for the command not to swear by heaven (in 5:34b).

Here are some other ways to translate this:

Do not swear by heaven, because it is God’s throne
-or-
Heaven is God’s throne, so don’t swear by heaven. (Contemporary English Version)

it is God’s throne: A throne is the chair in which a king or queen sits during ceremonial occasions. In this context, the words God’s throne means “the place where God rules as King.”

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

where God sits to rule

-or-

the place from which God rules

© 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.