to swear under a curse: to bind a promise or a claim with a curse on whoever breaks or defies it, or to lay such an oath on someone else.
In ancient Israel a solemn promise was not simply a statement. To make it binding you attached a curse to it: if I am lying, let this harm fall on me. That is what this verb names. It is not bad language or a flash of temper but a formal act, spoken out loud, that hands the enforcing of a promise over to God.
Because the one act has two sides, English needs different words for it:
- Where speakers bind themselves, translations say "swear": a man accused by his neighbor comes and swears before the altar (1 Kings 8:31).
- Where the curse is aimed at someone else, translations say "curse": Micah's mother had called down harm on whoever took her silver (Judges 17:2).
- Where a leader imposes the oath on other people, translations say "adjure" or "put under oath": Saul laid one on his army in the middle of a battle (1 Samuel 14:24).
The prophets use the word for the abuse of all this. Hosea lists it among the crimes tearing the country apart (Hosea 4:2), and says the leaders swear falsely while they make their treaties (Hosea 10:4). The wording of the oath is correct, the curse is invoked, and nobody intends to keep the promise.
The matching noun (אָלָה) names the thing itself, the oath or the curse as spoken words. The ordinary Hebrew verb for taking an oath (שָׁבַע) is far more common and leaves the curse in the background; this word puts it in front.