alah

At its heart this word is a sworn commitment that carries teeth. To make this kind of oath was not simply to give your word; it was to call down ruin on yourself if you failed to keep it. The oath and the curse behind it were one act, which is why the same word can be translated either way.

Most often it names the oath that seals a covenant or treaty. When Isaac and Abimelech made peace, an oath bound them to it. When kings entered treaties, or when Israel bound itself to keep God's law, this was the sworn tie that held them together. To break the covenant was to despise this oath, and the prophets treat that as a grave betrayal.

It also names an oath laid on a single person, as when a court required a man to swear his innocence, or when Abraham put his servant under oath. In every case the word points less to the words spoken than to the binding force behind them: a self-directed curse that made the promise real.

This is the curse as a formal, invoked penalty, not a spontaneous flash of anger and not a magic spell. It is the doom that a sworn oath or covenant attaches to disobedience, released on whoever breaks faith.

Its home is the covenant. Deuteronomy piles up the curses written into the law, and they fall on those who turn away; Daniel confesses that this very curse has been poured out on a faithless nation. From there the word widens: a people can become a curse, meaning a byword that others name when they wish harm, a living example of ruin.

The same word also covers a solemn adjuration, a curse pronounced to force someone to tell the truth or to test whether they are guilty, as in the ritual for a suspected wife or the charge laid on a witness. At its lightest it can mean plain hostile speech, the cursing of an angry tongue. Across the range the constant is a pronounced sentence of harm, whether it enforces a covenant, brands a nation, or simply spills from a spiteful mouth.