Hebrews 6:16

Hebrews 6:16. For men swear (‘verily,' or ‘indeed,' goes out on external authority) by the greater: by one who is above themselves, and can punish the wrong-doer; and for confirmation, when any statement of theirs is contradicted the oath is final; the question, as a legal question, is settled. The oath here spoken of includes two distinct cases: the truth of a statement was made legally valid by the oath of assurance which appealed to God; an agreement or covenant was made legally binding by the oath of promise, accompanied on solemn occasions by the death of the covenanting victim, which death was really an imprecation of death on him who broke the agreement. Further sanctions, in either case, were impossible. The oath went beyond everything. It was as far as men could go. It still forms the highest and final sanction of the law; and when men's statements are contradicted or their promises questioned, the oath is the ultimate confirmation of both. Some translate contradiction ‘dispute,' or ‘strife;' ‘of every dispute or strife of theirs the oath is an end.' The interpretation given above is the more probable, however, partly because ‘contradiction' is the accurate rendering of the word elsewhere (chap. Hebrews 7:7), and partly because there is no dispute or strife supposed in this case, but only, on man's side, disbelief and questioning of the Divine announcement. The entire thought of this reasoning is given in very similar words in Philo (see Delitzsch).