Leviticus 5:4

Lips. This is necessary before he can be punished by men; but every secret promise binds before God. (Tostat) --- Evil or good: any thing whatsoever, whether favour or punishment, whether the completion of it be difficult or easy. (Calmet) --- Thus parents sometimes foolishly swear that they will chastise their children unmercifully; libertines that they will live in luxuries as long as they have any money; ill-natured people that they will never speak to such a one, that they will murder, &c. To execute such promises, even confirmed by an oath, would be a double crime. Let them ask pardon of God for their rash oath. (Philo) --- Herod made his oath a pretext for killing John the Baptist, deluding himself, perhaps, with a false interpretation of this law. (Haydock) --- As such hasty oaths are easily forgotten, when the guilty person recollected himself, he was bound to confess his fault to the priest in the following manner, according to the Rabbins: Placing his hands between the horns of his victim, he shall say, "I beseech you, Lord, I have sinned; I have committed iniquity and prevarication; I have committed such a fault. I repent, I am filled with sorrow and confusion for having done so; I will relapse no more." These doctors teach, that without confession and sorrow no sacrifice will remit sin. (Calmet) --- To preserve the secret of confession, the priests were ordered to eat the victims alone. (Philo, &c.) (Tirinus)