20) Covenant - Disciple Program week 4

One of the key concepts in the Old Testament is that of the covenant relationship between the people of Israel and their God. Being in this covenant relationship defined them as a people set apart, but it also challenged them to faithfulness to the living God, and living in right relationship with other members of the covenant community.

The first covenant is that with Noah:

 Gen. 9:11 "I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 

The next covenant is that with Abram and renewed under his new name Abraham in Gen 15.

 Gen. 15:18-21 "On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” 

Gen. 17:2 "And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly  numerous.” 

The covenant with the people of Israel looms large within the Pentateuch and it is the covenant with Moses at Sinai/Horeb that will take pride of place in Israel's imagination because now it is not just a covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but now the people are involved and must voice their own response. Moses is instructed by God to remind the people that:

 Exod. 19:5-6  "Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my   treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”  

For their own part the people now respond:  “Everything that the LORD has spoken we will do.” Exod 19:8.

This covenant will be renewed in the book of Deuteronomy (the second law) when the new generation of the people of Israel prepare to enter the land, and are reminded that the covenant made at Horeb is now made with them, and they are called to bind themselves to it.

Deut. 5:2-3  "The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.  Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. "

Photo By: G. Dall’Orto

Covenants and treaties in the Ancient Near East

This pattern of stipulations and acceptance is part of the making of treaties, agreements and covenants that were well established in the Ancient Near East.



Suzerainty/Vassal treaties were made between a great monarch and a lesser king and usually had six parts:

      1) Preamble
      2) Historical prologue
      3) Stipulations
      4) Provisions for treaty deposit & public reading
      5) List of Divine witnesses to the treaty
      6) Blessings & curses (for fidelity or infidelity to
          the treaty)

Parity treaties, as the name suggests, were made between two parties of equal status and these were made between rulers forging alliances, merchants in establishing trade agreements, and in marriage contracts between the father of the bride and the groom (the bride was not seen to be of equal status with the groom).

Another form of treaty was that of land that was gifted to a loyal subject as a reward for faithful service. In these treaties it is the donor who makes the promise of the land and there are no demands made of the recipient.

The Old Testament covenants share many of the elements of contemporary Ancient Near Eastern covenants and treaties, but they do not fit these patterns exactly. Clearly the God of Israel takes the role of the greater monarch, as in Vassal treaties but it is interesting to note that in Israel's history, for all the stipulations and agreed blessings and curses, God is always faithful, even when Israel is not.

Psa. 105:8-10  "He is mindful of his covenant forever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant "

Is. 54:10 "For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you."