98 Paul Sanders Especially against the background of more and more expressions being regarded as instances of abuse of God’s name, it is striking that only in 1 Sam 25,22 the self-imprecation seems to have been modified on purpose. Moreover, neither the earliest Jewish translations nor the earliest Christian translations of the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint, Targumim, Vulgate and Peshitta) show any traces of opposition against the phrase. To a high degree, the rendering of the Hebrew text is literal. Only in some isolated cases are there minor deviations from the Hebrew text. These deviations, however, can certainly not be ascribed to the self-imprecation being conceived as the abuse of God’s name. All in all, there are no grounds on which to assume that the phrase πyswy hkw µyhla yl hç[y hk as such was met with resistance in early Jewish and early Christian circles. However, the textual alteration in 1 Sam 25,22 shows that there was opposition to the practice of reinforcing a promise using the self-imprecatory phrase, if the speaker proved to fail his promise later. Paulus Potterlaan 69 Paul SANDERS 2282 GE Rijswijk The Netherlands SUMMARY In the Hebrew Bible we find the self-imprecation “So may God do to me and more also!” (2 Sam 3,35, 1 Kgs 2,23, etc.). In many cases, the phrase is immediately conditioned: “So may God do to me and more also, if you will not be the commander of the army” (2 Sam 19,14). God may punish the speaker, if the latter fails his promise. Ancient Mesopotamian sources suggest that the word “So” in the Hebrew expression originally referred to a gesture in use when taking an oath: the touching of the throat. The biblical passages where the expression occurs do not display any resistance to the use of the formula as such, even though it was often pronounced inconsiderately. However, the textual alteration in 1 Sam 25,22 shows that there was opposition to the idea that the pious king David failed a promise that he had reinforced using the self-imprecatory phrase.