Lesson 5

The Concept of Covenant

Photograph of a rainbow, the sign of the covenant with Noah

(Photo by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay)

Synopsis

The concept of covenant is one of the most important concepts in the Bible because it gives unity to the whole story. The History of Salvation is structured around a series of covenants that God establishes with his people, culminating in the New Covenant through which God overcomes the crisis caused by Adam and Eve’s rebellion against him and restores our communion with him. In this lesson we will explain what a covenant is and describe the seven essential element components in the making of covenants. We will then look at the first three covenants in the Bible, that is, the covenants God established with Adam, Noah, and Abraham.

Learning Objectives

You will have successfully completed this lesson when you understand and can:

Explain what a covenant is.
Describe the essential elements in the making of covenants

If you have achieved all the learning objectives established in lesson 1 to 5, you should be capable of explaining how the first eleven chapters of the Bible masterfully fulfill the requirements of great introductions.

Introduction

In the previous lesson, we looked at three motifs that make their first appearance in the introduction. They are the motifs of water and wind, exile, and the face of God. In this lesson we will study a fourth motif: covenant. This motif is so significant that we need to treat it separately. The concept of covenant is one of the most important concepts in the Bible because it gives unity to the whole story. The History of Salvation is structured around a series of covenants God establishes with his people, culminating in the New Covenant through which God overcomes the crisis caused by Adam and Eve’s rebellion against him and restores our communion with him. We read in the gospels that, during the Last Supper:

As they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is poured out for many. (Mk 14:22–24)

The Hebrew word for covenant is berit, which can be translated as diatheke in Greek and testamentum in Latin. Therefore, the Old and the New Testaments could also be called the Old and the New Covenants. In this lesson, we will explain what a covenant is and describe its essential components.

The Covenant with Abram

The motif of a covenant already appears twice in the first eleven chapters, but they are a bit obscure. Therefore, we will start our presentation on covenants by looking at the covenant God established with Abram in chapter 15.

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in two, and laid each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know of a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be slaves there, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation which they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land.” (Gn 15:7–19)

What is going on here? It all sounds a bit strange. God asks Abram to sacrifice several animals, cut them up in pieces and make a pathway with them. What is the meaning of the smoking firepot and flaming torch? As we will see, the Bible is merely describing a common ancient rite used for the making of covenants. Before describing this rite in more detail, though, let us first look more closely at what a covenant is.

What is a Covenant?

Covenant comes from the Latin word, convenire, which means “to come together” or “to agree”. Today, we use the word “covenant” almost interchangeably with the word “contract” because there are similarities between the two and everyone knows what a contract is. Nevertheless, this can be misleading because there are fundamental differences between covenants and contracts.

First, contracts are based on promises whereas covenants are based on oaths. For example, when two people make a contract for the sale of a home, the buyer promises to pay the agreed-upon amount of money and the seller promises to give him the title to the property. Once the parties sign the contract, they are legally bound by its terms. If someone doesn’t fulfill their obligations, they will be held personally accountable, even punished by law if necessary.

A covenant is very different. In a covenant, instead of signing with one’s own name, one swears an oath and invokes God as the guarantor. That is, one signs using God’s name. Because of this, covenants are much more serious and solemn than contracts. If someone swears an oath in vain or knowingly breaks it, he or she will be committing the sin of sacrilege against God’s Holy Name.

A second big difference between contracts and covenants is that contracts involve the exchange of goods, whereas covenants involve the exchange of persons. In our example of the sale of a home, the buyer promises to give money and the seller promises to give the property. These are things. In a contract, you offer something you own, such as a building, money or even a personal skill. In a covenant however, you offer your very being. You give yourself to the other person. Because of this mutual self-giving, a communion of life between the contracting parties is established. In other words, the contracting parties become family.

The difference between a covenant and a contract is so profound that it is like the difference between marriage and prostitution. Marriage is a form of covenant making. During the wedding, the bride and groom swear an oath to each other promising, “I am yours forever.” The result of marriage is family: a communion of life between the bride and the groom.

In prostitution, the prostitute and the client establish a contract in which the client buys the right to use the prostitute’s body as an object in exchange for money. The couple may momentarily do things that husbands and wives do, but this union will only be physical and temporary. There is no communion of life.

Just as the bride and groom form a family through their marital covenant, so too does God form us into his spiritual family through covenants he establishes with us. Today, those who enter into a covenant with God through baptism become part of his family. We become sons and daughters of God in relation to the Father, and as members of the Church, we become the bride of Christ.

As we have seen in a previous lesson, God’s purpose in creating us, ever since the beginning, was to bring us into his spiritual family. By establishing a covenant with us, he is saying, “I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people… and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters” (2 Cor 6:16–18).

Covenants in the Bible

Just like our English word “marriage” can refer either the wedding ceremony itself or the communion of life between husband and wife, which is the result of this ceremony, so too, can berit, the Hebrew word for covenant, refer to either the ritual act which establishes the covenant or the resulting communion of life.

The Bible is full of covenants made between human parties. For example:

The covenant between David and Jonathan that established a mutual blessing and a quasi-consanguinity between the two.

When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would not let him return to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his girdle. (1 Sm 18:1–4)

A treaty of non-aggression between Jacob and his uncle Laban. Jacob swore to treat his wives (Laban’s daughters) well, and Laban swore not to cross Jacob’s boundaries with hostile intent.

Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “… Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I; and let it be a witness between you and me.” So Jacob took a stone, and set it up as a pillar. And Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones,” and they took stones, and made a heap; and they ate there by the heap… Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today… The Lord watch between you and me, when we are absent one from the other. If you ill-treat my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no man is with us, remember, God is witness between you and me.” Then Laban said to Jacob, “See this heap and the pillar, which I have set between you and me. This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, for harm…” So Jacob swore … and Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his kinsmen to eat bread. (Gn 31:43–54)

A treaty establishing diplomatic and commercial ties between Solomon and Hiram, the king of Tyre.

So there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a covenant. (NABRE 1 Kgs 5:26)

However, the covenants that interest us the most are those established between God and his people. There are six major covenants in the Bible.

The covenant with Adam and Eve in Gn 1:26–2:3.
The covenant with Noah and his family in Gn 9:8–17.
The covenant with Abraham and his descendants in Gn 12:1–3; 17:1–14; 22:16–18.
The covenant with Moses and the nation of Israel in Ex 19:5–6; 3:4–10; 6:7.
The covenant with David and the Kingdom of Israel in 2 Saml 7:8–19.
The covenant with Jesus and the Church in Mt 26:28; 16:17–19.

Throughout the history of Israel, God renewed these covenants on several occasions. For example, he renewed with Isaac (Gn 26:3) and then Jacob (Gn 28:13–15) the covenant he had previously made with Abraham. He renewed with Joshua (Jo 24) the covenant he made with Moses and with Solomon (1 Kings 9:1–9) the covenant he made with David. But these six covenants mentioned above are the fundamental ones. Together they give form and structure to the story of the Bible. That is why, to understand the Bible, it is important to know these covenants well.

The Covenant Ritual

Covenants were common in the ancient world. Archeologists have found extra-biblical texts that describe how they were made. Although there were different ways for making covenants, these do share some common elements. In most cases, the central act in making a covenant was the swearing of an oath by one or both parties (See Gn 21:31–32; 22:16; 26:28; Jo 9:15; Ez 16:59; 17:13–19). The oath generally took the form of a self-curse. The covenant-maker called on God or the gods to inflict death or some other grave penalty upon himself should he fail to keep the obligations of the covenant. This curse could be pronounced with words, or it could be expressed through a ritual.

We know that sometimes the contracting parties ratified the covenant by walking through a pathway created by dismembered animals. This was a way of invoking a curse upon themselves if they ever broke the covenant. The meaning of this ritual was that they were invoking on themselves the same fate as that of the slaughtered animals.

And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant which they made before me, I will make like the calf which they cut in two and passed between its parts—the princes of Judah, the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. (Jer 34:18–19)

Archaeologists have found many extra-biblical texts to confirm this. One example is a treaty between King Ashurnirari V of Assyria and the Syrian city of Arpad. A part of this treaty reads:

This spring lamb has been brought from its fold not for sacrifice, not for a banquet, not for a purchase; ... it has been brought to sanction the treaty between Ashurnirari and Mati’ilu (the city’s leader). If Mati’ilu sins against (this) treaty made under oath by the gods, then, just as this spring lamb, brought from its fold, will not return to its fold... Mati’ilu, together with his sons, daughters, officials, and the people of his land... will not return to his country, and not behold his country again. This head is not the head of a lamb, it is the head of Mati’ilu, it is the head of his sons, his officials, and the people of his land. If Mati’ilu sins against this treaty, so may, just as the head of this spring lamb is torn off, . . . the head of Mati’ilu be torn off. (Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 532).

This self-curse ritual takes on different forms. In the covenant made with Moses, for example, Moses sprinkled the people with the blood of sacrificed bulls.

Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” (Ex 24:8).

This ritually cursed anyone who might break the covenant. The idea was that their blood should be shed, like the blood of the animals, if they were ever unfaithful.

As we have seen, the result of a covenant was family. This new communion of life was also signified in the covenant making ritual. For example, the parties would share a common meal together to confirm their new familial relationships. We see this in the covenant Jacob established with his uncle:

Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his kinsmen to eat bread; and they ate bread and tarried all night on the mountain. (Gn 31:54)

Understanding God’s Covenant with Abram

Taking into account what we have just mentioned, it is clear that in the passage cited above, God established a covenant with Abram. Many years had gone by since God had originally promised Abram a land of his own, but he had still not fulfilled it. Therefore, when he appeared to Abram again in chapter 15, it was natural for Abram to begin to have his doubts. “How am I to know that I shall possess it?” he asked. In response, God reassured him by establishing a covenant. This raised the original promise to the level of a solemn oath.

God did this by telling Abram to sacrifice some animals, dismember them and make a pathway with their parts. God, in the form of a smoking pot and a flaming torch, passed through the pathway at night, while Abram was sleeping. As he walked through, he proclaimed the terms of the covenant: “To your descendants I give this land”.

Notice that only God passed through the animal pieces. This detail is very significant. It means that God unilaterally established this covenant and took upon himself the corresponding obligations and curses. Indeed, this is what happened. When the covenant was broken, God suffered the consequences of the curse. He was slain like an animal on the cross at Golgotha.

The Main Elements of a Covenant

We have given enough information to be able to identify the main components of biblical covenants. Each of these components is an essential part, even though they are not always explicitly mentioned in the text. The seven components are:

The ritual or foundational act by which the covenant is established.
The covenant mediator, that is, the person with whom God established the covenant on behalf of others.
The conditions of the covenant that the people must uphold.
The blessings or promises that God will fulfill to those who keep the covenant.
The curses or punishment that will fall on those who fail to keep the covenant.
The sign by which the covenant will be celebrated and remembered.
The new communion of life or family formed between God and his people.

The Covenant with Adam

Although the word “covenant” is not used in the first three chapters of Genesis to describe the relationship between God and Adam, there are several factors which lead us to conclude that God did in fact establish a covenant with him. The first is the connection between the seventh day of creation and a covenant as we discussed in the lesson on creation. Remember what we saw there. In the ancient world, one entered a covenant by swearing an oath. In Hebrew, the original language of Genesis, the word for “oath-swearing” is formed from the word for “seven”. To swear an oath was literally called “to seven oneself”.

Another clue is given in Exodus 31. It states that the seventh day (that is, the Sabbath) is to be the sign of the covenant.

“Say to the people of Israel, ‘You shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you… It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.’” (Ex 31:13, 17)

Furthermore, in Genesis 6:18, when God established the covenant with Noah he said: “I will establish my covenant with you.” The Hebrew verb translated as “establish” implies a renewal of an already existing covenant. A final clue is given by the prophet Hosea. He compares Israel’s transgression of the covenant to Adam’s. The wording implies that Adam had entered into a covenantal relationship with God.

[Like] Adam they transgressed the covenant;

there they dealt faithlessly with me. (Hos 6:7)

It is clear from the context of the first two chapters of Genesis that the covenant God established with Adam was a completely free gift. There was nothing Adam did to deserve it, just as there was nothing he did to deserve being created. Both creation and the covenant were unilateral acts of God.

The ritual God used to establish this covenant is not specified in the Bible, but he established the covenant with Adam, who acted as the covenant mediator. God blessed Adam and Eve and said to them; “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gn 1:28). The condition for staying in the covenant was to refrain from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (see Gn 2:16–17) and the curse or punishment for breaking the covenant was spiritual death (see Gn 2:17).

By this covenant, Adam and Eve became a part of God’s family. Had they not sinned, all their descendants would have been born into this family. We would all now be living in loving communion with God and each other. Unfortunately, as we know, this did not happen. Adam and Eve broke the covenant. They suffered a spiritual death. We, as their children and heirs, have inherited this state of spiritual death. This is what theologians call original sin.

The Covenant with Noah

God renewed the covenant with Noah. Once again, this was a totally free gift from God. We see this in the fact that Noah did nothing to merit it and because God spoke of “my covenant” and not “our” covenant. In addition, God included the animals in the covenant.

As with the covenant with Adam, the ritual used to establish the covenant is not specified. Noah was the covenant mediator and mediated between God and his family. God blessed Noah and his family just as he had blessed Adam and Eve and told them to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gn 9:1).

The condition for keeping the covenant was to not kill other people nor drink the blood of animals (see Gn 9:4–5). It is not clear why they weren’t allowed to drink the blood of animals. One possible interpretation is that blood was thought to be the seat of life and God was the only one entitled to give or take life from any living being. Whatever the reason, the curse or punishment for breaking the covenant was death, not spiritual, as with the first covenant, but this time it was physical death.

For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will require it and of man; of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image. (Gn 9:5–6)

The sign of the covenant was the rainbow (see Gn 9:12–17). Every time God sees a rainbow, he remembers this covenant. The result of this covenant is that Noah and his family (his wife, his three children and their wives) became part of God’s family.

The Covenant with Abraham

In the Bible, there are three moments in which God established a covenant with Abraham (Gn 15:1–21; 17:1–27; and 22:15–18). These can be considered as three separate covenants, or parts of the same covenant. In any case, they are cumulative, that is, they build upon each other. The first covenant is found in chapter 15. With this covenant, God solemnized through an oath his earlier promise to give Abraham a land.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land.” (Gn 15:18)

The ritual God used to establish the covenant is described in detail, as we saw above. As with the previous covenants, this one was an absolutely free gift. We see this in the fact that Abram was sleeping when God established the covenant with him.

The second moment is found in chapter 17. It builds on the first covenant. It will be an everlasting covenant because God will include Abraham’s descendants in it. In addition, Abraham will not just have offspring, as promised before, but kings will descend from him.

“Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you, and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” (Gn 17:4–8)

The condition for staying in the covenant was circumcision.

And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house, or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he that is born in your house and he that is bought with your money, shall be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” (Gn 17:9–14)

The third moment comes right after the sacrifice of Isaac. God builds on the previous two covenants by now swearing to bless all nations through Abraham’s descendants.

And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Gn 22:15–18)

Abraham was the mediator of this covenant in his role as chieftain of a clan and mediated between God and the people of his clan.

The three blessings of this covenant define the structure of the Bible. The books from Exodus to Joshua tell how the Israelites obtain the land (God’s first promise). The books of Judges, and First and Second Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles describe the establishment of the Kingdom of David (God’s second promise). Finally, the gospels in the New Testament tell God blesses all nations (God’s third promise). In short, the story of the Bible can be summarized as the story of God faithfully fulfilling his promises to Abraham. Through these, he achieves his original goal of bringing us into his family.

With each successive covenant, God’s family also grew larger and larger. With the covenant with Adam, it consisted of two people: Adam and Eve. With the covenant with Noah, God’s family had grown to include eight people: Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives. With Abraham, God’s family had grown to include a whole clan. We are not given the exact number, although in Ex 1:5 we are told that 70 of Jacob’s descendants went down to Egypt.

Later on, in the Book of Exodus, when God establishes his covenant with Moses, his family will grow to become a holy nation. Then, when God establishes his covenant with David, it will become a kingdom. Finally, God will establish with Jesus his final and definitive covenant. All of humanity is invited to enter into this covenant.

Jesus calls the assembly of all those who enter this final covenant his Church, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. We are still in the middle of the first book of the Bible. We have a long way to go, before we will come to the age of the Church.

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