1 Nephi 4:33 "oath"

Nephi makes an oath with Zoram that if he will listen and follow Nephi's lead he can stay with them and be a free man.  The oath seems to be in part the words, 'as the Lord liveth' and 'as I liveth'.  In the cross-reference to the word oath we see that David and Jonathan had an oath between them and it was called the 'Lord's Oath'.   These seem to be strong words, in the souls of the honorable, these were completely binding oaths that could not be broken.  As I have read the chapters on war, it would seem to me that even the Lamanites, who were less honorable, would have held oaths like these as binding.  In this case it certainly seemed to help Zoram make his decision to stay with Lehi's family instead of trying to run back to Jerusalem.

I still have this feeling that Zoram and Nephi knew something about each other prior to this meeting.  Zoram may have known of Lehi's wealth, and as such he knew that if he left what little he had in Jerusalem he would have much more given to him of Lehi.  In later chapters Lehi blesses Zoram and comments on his friendship with Nephi.  I can't help but think that their friendship may have begun much earlier, maybe as classmates.  I think they both also loved the scriptures.