5787: The Year of the Oath

5787: The Year of the Oath

If you are a Christian who speaks in a heavenly language, how often have you heard yourself or others say “shaba”? This is a significant utterance. It means oath and seven.

Seven is not just a number in Hebrew. It is a word. ‘Shaba’  to seven oneself, to bind oneself by seven things. To swear an oath. The number seven also means divine perfection, completion.

That is why, when Abraham settled his dispute with Abimelech, he set seven ewe lambs apart as a witness, and the place was named Beersheba which means the Well of the Seven, the Well of the Oath (Genesis 21). And when Jehovah wanted Abraham to know that His promise would stand, the text says He swore — shaba' — by Himself (Genesis 22:16). God sevened Himself to His own word.

We are entering 5787. A year with the oath written into its name.

What seven has always been saying and what is seven emphasizing this year?

Watch how often the number shows up when God is making something unbreakable.

Israel circled Jericho seven times, and on the seventh day, seven times more. Every time that story was told aloud, the listeners heard something the walls couldn't hear: oath, oath, oath or shaba, shaba, shaba!

At the cross, seven sayings. And the last one settles everything: "It is finished." Jesus was in effect saying “shaba”.  My oath is sealed.  It is completed and perfected.

The Greek word is tetelestai. It was not a sigh of relief. It was a business term. Merchants stamped it across an invoice when the last payment cleared: paid in full. Debt settled. Nothing outstanding.

Jesus made an accounting declaration. Paul picks up the same ledger language in Romans when he tells us to reckon ourselves dead to sin— to count it, to account it so. The debt is cancelled, closed, and nothing is owed.

So let this be the year you stop paying on a bill that was already stamped.

Let the accusing voices end here.  Shaba!

This is a year of the “seven”, a year of stability.  Stability cries, “I will not be moved”!

We can say, I know the oaths written in the covenant. I am heir to the promise. It’s guaranteed!

"When God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it by an oath." (Hebrews 6:17)

He wants us to be certain.

That is why 5787 is a year of stabilization, a year our faith gets made sure. Surer, stable. Your faith is settled. The kind of sure that holds in stormy weather. The kind that keeps you steady while crossing over gorge on a very unstable tightrope. 

Storms are not cancelled this year. But the boat that takes on water is not the same as the boat that sinks. A settle man rides out what an unsettled man drowns in.

Declare it and wear it.

Abraham ended a dispute with seven. Israel ended a wall with seven. A declaration repeated until it settles is how disputes close.

So ask yourself:

What is disputing your promise? What is arguing with the word of prophecy spoken over you?

Name it. Then take God's oath over it and say it until it stops being something you hope and becomes something you know. Declare it, and then wear it. Carry yourself like someone whose account is closed and whose Partner cannot lie. He is your Beersheba, the Well of Oath.

Paul lived there. "None of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy." (Acts 20:24) He wasn't unmovable because he was tough. He was unmovable because of what he knew about God's oaths. God's shaba.

"My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips." (Psalm 89:34)

This is the year of stabilizing our faith. God cannot lie. He is the God who swears and sticks to it.  

Stop drifting. Settle in for the full potential of the gospel.

5787 — the year of the oath. He sevened Himself to you at the Cross. Rest there, and don't move.  Don’t be moved by anything that is disputing the “yes” and “amen” of every promise.