The curious variety of such oaths as consist only of words without any additional action or ceremony, will hereafter offer itself to our notice. They were as numberless as are the shades of difference in the religions of mankind, as the Gods many and Lords many which superstitious heathenism adopted; and they varied often with the caprices of individual men*.

3. The next form to which our attention is drawn in the Old Testament, first occurs when Abraham would bind his chief steward by a most solemn obligation, to the performance of a specific duty. "And he said to the eldest servant of his house that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and I will make thee swear by Jehovah, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not, &c. And the servant put his hand under the thigh† of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning

* Jacob is said to have sworn by the "Fear of his father Isaac." Which, probably, most persons will consider as merely a periphrastical expression for the Almighty. "The fear of whom (as Theodoret instructs us to interpret the passage,) the patriarchs cherished in their hearts.”

† I am fully aware of the symbolical meaning connected with the mysteries of Egypt, connected with this form of oath: but we need not pursue that subject further. It has been stated, that there are no instances of this oath being used, except by the patriarchs, but there are instances, we are told, of its prevalence among the Egyptians even in modern times.

this matter*." The same form precisely we find on the death-bed of Jacob: "And the time drew nigh that Israel must die, and he called unto him his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me: bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt, but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying-place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said, and he said, Swear unto me, and he sware unto him; and Israel bowed himself on the bed's-head+."

A custom somewhat analogous to this offers itself to our notice in ancient as well as in modern times. Ancient history tells us that when invoking any one of their Gods to witness the truth, the juror touched the foot or the knee of that deity's statue‡; and (as our law-books tell us in the case of Omychund and Barker) the ceremony of a Gentoo's oath is to the present day this;—the witness touches the feet of a Brahmin, and two other Brahmins at the same time touch the witness's hand.

4. This form of oath was, for the most part, observed when an inferior, either in station or age, pledged his faith to his superior; the form which occurs next in order in the Old Testament was, as

* Gen. xxiv. 3.

Gen. xLvii. 29.
See Juvenal, Sat: xiv. 219.

it seems, rather confined to equals the ceremony of joining hands: it was had recourse to chiefly when they swore to the terms of a treaty. The* first instance occurs in the interview between Jehu and Jehonadab:-"Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?" "It is." "If it be, give me thine hand, and he gave him his hand+." That this was a solemn pledge and an appeal to heaven, not, as the shaking of hands is with us, merely a form of conveying sentiments expressive of kind and affectionate feeling, is evident from other passages of Scripture, and is most clearly confirmed and exemplified by the testimony of many ancient authors. In Ezekiel, "to give the hand" is regarded as equivalent to a solemn oath of God, and though given to an enemy and to an idolater, is represented if violated as involving the guilt and the punishment of perjury. The whole passage from which these sentiments are extracted is very striking, and will repay a closer examination. "The King of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof and made a covenant with him, and hath taken an oath of him; but he rebelled against him:-shall he prosper? Shall he escape that doeth such things?

* That it was, however, a custom which prevailed before this incident occurred is evident. Reference is often made to it. -See Job xvii. 3.-Proverbs vi. 1. and xi. 15. 2 Kings x. 15.

or shall he break the covenant and be delivered? As I live, saith the Lord God, in the place where the king dwelleth whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him, in the midst of Babylon, he shall die, seeing he despised the oath, by breaking the covenant, when, lo! he had given his hand*." This ceremony is recognised by many ancient writers, as one of the most solemn forms of an oath; we may specify two or three instances. Xenophon, in his Cyropædia, represents Cyrus as saying to Gobryas, "On these terms I pledge myself to speak the truth, and give my right hand to thee and take thine+." Euripides represents Menelaus as demanding of Helen a solemn pledge by oath (as we must infer from the three lines above), and the pledge he requires is, that she should lay her hand on his. Diodorus Siculus says expressly that the most binding of all pledges of faith among the Persians was joining of hands. It seems even to have been regarded as imposing a more trustworthy obligation than an oath sworn by their Gods. Thus, Josephus tells us that Artabanus, after swearing by his country's Gods to do Asinæus no harm, gave him his right hand, representing that act as the pledge of faith most relied upon by all the barbarians in that part of the world; "for no one," he adds, "would + Xen. Cyrop.

* Ezekiel xvii. 12.

Eurip. Helen, 847.

break his word, nor would any one hesitate to place the fullest confidence in another, after the hand was once given." The classical remains of antiquity abound with instances to the same effect; we must be content with one more reference. When Germanicus, on his death-bed, had communicated his last wishes to his friends who stood around, those friends swore, says Tacitus, laying their hands on the hand of the dying man, that they would lose their life rather than not take vengeance on his enemiest.

The English reader needs scarcely to be reminded that the most solemn of all earthly pledges and vows is given between man and wife by joining of hands+.

5. Another form of oath is recorded (Numbers v. 22), by which the magistrate repeats the words

* Joseph. xviii. 9.

Tac. Ann. ii. 71.

We meet with the representation of the pledge given by the joining of hands, in connexion with some religious ceremony, on many ancient coins; of which the accompanying engravings are specimens. They are taken from golden coins in the British Museum.