A rich man lay dying, and he called his son to the bedside. He made him swear one oath — "Never take an oath yourself. Not in court, not in dispute, not for any price." The son agreed. The father died.
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 378, from the Midrash of the Ten Commandments, then follows what happens when a man holds that promise in a hard world. Swindlers arrived, one after another, each pretending the father had owed them a debt. Because the son refused to swear that no debt existed, he had to pay each claim. Piece by piece, his inheritance was taken. Finally, when he was nearly destitute, a stranger claimed the son owed him a single dinar. The son still refused to swear. He was thrown into debtor's prison.
His wife began washing laundry to feed their two small boys and save enough to free her husband. A ship docked; the captain saw her, fell in love, and paid her a dinar to wash his clothes. She gave the dinar to her elder son to bring to the father in prison. When she returned with the captain's clean clothes, he set sail — carrying her off against her will.
The son with the coin freed his father. Husband and wife were now separated by sea. The father fled with his two boys. They came to a river. He swam across carrying the younger boy on his back; the waves tore the child from his shoulders. A plank floated within reach; the father grabbed it and crawled ashore. Both boys survived, but on opposite banks of the river. A passing boat captured each of them.
The father, naked and broken, found work tending sheep for a stranger. One day in despair he tried to drown himself — and snakes and scorpions in the water drove him back. A voice called his name. An eagle landed beside him and said, "Your time of rising has come. A treasure is buried on this very spot. Go to the king, buy this land, build a city here."
He did. He became wealthy. He became the ruler of the land. Years later, a merchant ship arrived in his harbor carrying — he did not yet know — his two lost sons. He recognized them and kept them, not revealing who he was. Later another ship arrived carrying the captain and the stolen wife. The king invited the captain to dinner and sent "two trustworthy servants" to guard his wife aboard ship — the two lost sons, now grown.
On the boat, the young men wept together. "This boat is like the one we were taken on as children." Their mother, listening through the wall, recognized their voices. She questioned them. They told their story. She knew them. Before the king she accused the captain of carrying her off — and the captain confessed everything but swore he had never laid a hand on her. The king, her husband, revealed himself. The family was complete.
The father's dying oath — never swear — had cost his son everything and given him everything. A life that refuses to trade sacred words for convenience is often rebuilt by a different hand than the one that tore it down.