ADJURATION (Ad-ju-ra'sbun),(Heb. aw law', in Hiph., to cause to swear, in 1 Kings viii:3t; 2 Chron. vi:22; shaw-bah', to make swear.
Gr. ex-or-kid' zo, to exact an oath).
1. This is a solemn act or appeal, whereby one man, usually a person vested with natural or offi cial authority, imposes upon another the obliga tion of speaking or acting as if under the solem nity of an oath. We find the word shawbah used in this sense in Cant. ii :7; iii :5, etc.
2. In the New Testament the act of adjuration is performed with more marked effect, as when the high-priest thus calls upon Christ, 'I adjure thee by the living God, tell us,' etc. (Matt. xxvi :63). The word used here is that by which the LXX render the Hebrew (see also Mark v :7; Acts xix : 13; I Thess. v :27). An oath, although thus im posed upon one without his consent, was not only binding, but solemn in the highest degree, and when connected with a question, an answer was compulsory, which answer being as upon oath, any falsehood in it would be perjury. Thus our
Saviour, who had previously disdained to reply to the charges brought against him, now felt him self bound to answer the question put to him. The abstract moral right of any man to impose so serious an obligation upon another without his consent may very much be doubted—not, in deed, as compelling a true answer, which a just man will give under all circumstances, hut as extorting a truth which he might have just rea sons for withholding.
3. In the Roman Catholic Church it means the use of the name of God, or of some holy thing, to induce one to do what is required of him.
ADMAH (5.d'mah), (Heb. ad-maw', red earth), one of the cities in the vale of Siddim (Gen. x:19), which had a king of its own (Gen. xiv:2) It was destroyed along with Sodom and Gomor rah (Gen. xix:24; Dent. xxix:23; Hos. xi:8).