“When he [Zoram] saw the brethren and heard Nephi’s real voice he got the shock of his life and in a panic made a break for the city. In such a situation there was only one thing Nephi could possibly have done, both to spare Zoram and to avoid giving alarm—and no westerner could have guessed what it was. Nephi, a powerful fellow, held the terrified Zoram in a vice-like grip long enough to swear a solemn oath in his ear, ‘as the Lord liveth, and as I live’ (1 Ne. 4:32), that he would not harm him if he would listen. Zoram immediately relaxed, and Nephi swore another oath to him that he would be a free man if he would join the party: ‘Therefore, if thou wilt go down into the wilderness to my father thou shalt have place with us.’ (1 Ne. 4:34.)
“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 makes 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. . . .
“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, pp. 103–5).
