When you swear ‘by the altar,’ you are swearing by it and by everything on it.
Parallel translations
- WEB He therefore who swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it.
- KJV Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.
- BSB So then, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
- NKJV Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it.
- NASB Therefore, the one who swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
To swear by the altar is to swear by it and everything on it. It shows that no oath can be cleverly limited to escape obligation.
Overview
Jesus dismantles the leaders' loopholes by showing that swearing by the altar inevitably includes all that rests upon it. There is no way to make a partial or non-binding oath. The deeper teaching is that all of life is lived before God, so every word must be truthful and every commitment honored.
Cross-references & the web
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Christ at the center
Matthew presents Jesus as the promised King — son of David, son of Abraham — the new Moses and true Israel in whom every prophecy reaches 'that it might be fulfilled.'
How Matthew 23:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.