the five-finger promise

Think of the young man in a spot of trouble who met the Lord in a wilderness place. Jacob had journeyed far from home. In the dark of night, he had a dream that not only contained a ladder but also held significant covenant promises, including what I like to call the five-finger promise. On that night, the Lord stood beside Jacob, introduced Himself as the God of Jacob’s father, and then promised:

• I am with you.
• I will keep you safe.
• I will bring you home again.
• I will not leave you.
• I will keep my promise to you.

Jacob had a choice to make. He could choose to live his life simply acquainted with the God of his father, or he could choose to live life in committed covenant relationship with Him. Years later, Jacob testified of a life lived within the Lord’s covenant promises: “God … answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.” Just as He did for Jacob, the Lord will answer each of us in our day of distress if we choose to tether our life with His. He has promised to walk with us in the way.

Emily Belle Freeman

"Walking in Covenant Relationship with Christ" General Conference October 2023

the miraculous effect of Nephi’s oath

What astonishes the western reader is the miraculous effect of Nephi’s oath on Zoram, who upon hearing a few conventional words promptly becomes tractable, while as for the brothers, as soon as Zoram ‘made an oath unto us that he would tarry with us from that time forth … our fears did cease concerning him.’ (1 Ne. 4:35, 37.)

The reaction of both parties make sense when one realizes that the oath is the one thing that is most sacred and inviolable among the desert people and their descendants: ‘Hardly will an Arab break his oath, even if his life be in jeopardy,’ for ‘there is nothing stronger, and nothing more sacred than the oath among the nomads,’ and even the city Arabs, if it be exacted under special conditions. ‘The taking of an oath is a holy thing with the Bedouins,’ says one authority. ‘Wo to him who swears falsely; his social standing will be damaged and his reputation ruined. No one will receive his testimony, and he must also pay a money fine.’

But not every oath will do. To be most binding and solemn an oath should be by the life of something, even if it be but a blade of grass. The only oath more awful than that ‘by my life’ or (less commonly) ‘by the life of my head’ is the wa hayat Allah ‘by the life of God,’ or ‘as the Lord Liveth,’ the exact Arabic equivalent of the ancient Hebrew hai Elohim. Today it is glibly employed by the city riff raff, but anciently it was an awful thing, as it still is among the desert people. ‘I confirmed my answer in the Bedouin wise,’ says [Charles M.] Doughty. ‘By his life … he said, … “Well, swear by the life of Ullah” (God)! … I answered and thus even the nomads use, in a greater occasion, but they say by the life of thee in a little matter.’ Among both Arabs and Jews, says [Samuel] Rosenblatt, ‘an oath without God’s name is no oath,’ while ‘both in Jewish and Mohammedan societies oaths by “the life of God” are frequent.’

So we see that the only way that Nephi could possibly have pacified the struggling Zoram in an instant was to utter the one oath that no man would dream of breaking, the most solemn of all oaths to the Semite: ‘As the Lord liveth, and as I live!’ (1 Ne. 4:32.)

Hugh Nibley

An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 2nd ed. [1964], 104–5.