Concerning Aragorn, the Dead, and Oaths

In The Lord of the Rings, we learn that Isildur placed a curse on the race of men that broke their pact with him, thenceforth condemning them to walk as the living dead. Aragorn, being the rightful heir of Isildur, could break the curse by allowing them to fulfill their oath. As I recall, he was the only one who could do so.

Although it is quite possible that Tolkien simply found this useful to get the good guys out of their scrape--he did stack the odds rather high--I think one is reminded of something important here. In Tolkien's world, breaking an oath is an organic sin. The men who lived on that mountain were cursed because their oath was taken with reference to a higher power or standard, and violating it was an offense to the higher power as well as the other party in the oath. Breaking an oath is not simply bad form. It is contrary to nature.

Perhaps, if sin had never come into the world, we would not require oaths and pledges. Certainly most oaths, such as the well-known Hippocratic Oath or the oaths of citizenship most or all countries require, were devised to help ensure compliance to certain rules or laws--taking an oath adds solemnity to an occasion and also allows one to be easily prosecuted for breaking his word. Presumably one of the reasons that God seals His covenants with promises is because He knows our hunger for something in which to trust. Unlike God, men sometimes break their promises, of course. Either they repent of what they promised, or they never meant to keep their word in the first place and only used it to attain a certain position or gain a person's trust.

Though one may escape human punishment by breaking an oath, however, it will not escape the notice of God. The Bible warns us not to make oaths lightly, and says that a righteous man "sweareth to his own hurt." Even if a promise turns out to be to our disadvantage, or an annoyance, we cannot simply cancel the promise on those grounds. (Obviously, if one promised something sinful, that would cancel the obligation.) One of greatest uses man makes of his creative abilities for sinful purposes is the twisting or negation of truth and sincerity, and it is the duty of every follower of Christ to ensure that his life is not marked by such tendencies. We know the great comfort of God's faithfulness, and of him to whom much is given, much is required: would not those who enjoy God's complete trustworthiness be ungrateful servants to make it hard for others to trust them in turn?

Breaking a promise is not just unfair, or harmful, though it is both. It is also a violation of our natures. There may be times when misleading someone is not a sin (the Egyptian midwives, for instance, or Rahab), but those times are rare and, I think, fairly easy to discern. When telling the truth would result in the deaths of innocent people, then I think one is called upon to mislead or even to lie if necessary. But breaking any promise whose keeping does not lead to evil is serious business. This is one of the many things that should set the children of God apart from the world: they can be taken at their word. Isildur's punishment may have been harsh, but Tolkien recognized that the failure to keep an oath was not just an unfortunate business. It is a grievous and unnatural transgression. And just as only Aragorn, the Numenorean king, could release the dead from their oath, so can only God forgive us when we break our promises to others or, worse, to Him--which, alas, is not a rare thing. Is is not a comfort to know that He never breaks His word?