Here it may easily be seen that swearing in the Orient had so lost its original sacredness and become so vulgar, even as far back as the time of Christ, that He deemed it necessary to give the unqualified command, "Swear not at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." This was perhaps the most difficult command to obey that Jesus ever gave to his countrymen.
CHAPTER VIII
FOUR CHARACTERISTICS
Of the other characteristics of Oriental speech, I wish to speak of four before I bring this part of my book to a close.
The first, the many and picturesque dialects. The entire absence of the public school, the scarcity of other educational institutions, as well as of books and periodicals, and the extreme slowness of transportation, have always tended to perpetuate the multitude of dialects in the speech of the Syrian people. The common language of the land is the Arabic, which is divided into two types—the classical and the common, or the language of learning and that of daily speech. The classical language is one, but the common language is a labyrinth of dialects. Each section of that small country has its lehjah (accent), and it is no exaggeration to say that each town within those sections has a lehjah of its own. Certain letters of the alphabet are also sounded differently in different localities. Thus, for an example, the word for "stood" is pronounced qam in certain localities, and aam in others. The word for "male" is pronounced zeker by some communities, and deker by others.
That such a state of things prevailed also in ancient Israel and in New Testament times is very evident. In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Judges we have the record of a fight between the Gileadites and the Ephraimites, in which we find the following statement: "And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him."
This simple means of identification might be used in present-day Syria with equal success.
In the fourteenth chapter of St. Mark's Gospel we have another striking illustration of this characteristic of Oriental speech, in Peter's experience in the palace of the high priest. In the fifty-third verse it is said: "And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him were assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes. And Peter followed him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest." The record continues (verses 66-71): "And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest: and when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him, and said, And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied, saying, I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest. And he went out into the porch.... And a little after, they that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them: for thou art a Galilaean, and thy speech agreeth thereto.[[1]] But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak."