JST Gen. 14:25-40; D&C 84:33-44; 3 Ne. 12:33-37; Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon, Ludlow, pp. 96-97; Symposium on the Old Testament, Aug. 1983, Ricks College, pp. 139-142; refer in this text to Alma 44:8 & 1 Ne. 3:15
“In such a situation there was only one thing Nephi could possibly have done, both to spare Zoram and to avoid giving alarm—and no westerner could have guessed what it was. Nephi, a powerful fellow, held the terrified Zoram in a vice-like grip long enough to swear a solemn oath in his ear… . But not every oath will do: to be most binding and solemn an oath should be by the life of something… . Today it is glibly employed by the city riffraff, but anciently it was an awful thing… . So we see that the one and only way that Nephi could have pacified the struggling Zoram in an instant was to utter the one oath that no man would dream of breaking, the most solemn of all oaths to the Semite: ‘as the Lord liveth, and as I live …’ (4:32).” (Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, pp. 117-118)