Covenant (biblical)
The Hebrew Bible makes reference to a number of covenants with God. These include the Noahic Covenant set out in Genesis 9, which is decreed between God and all living creatures, as well as a number of more specific covenants with Abraham, the whole Israelite people, the Israelite priesthood, and the Davidic lineage of kings. In form and terminology, these covenants echo the kinds of treaty agreements existing in the surrounding ancient world.
The Book of Jeremiah, verses says that YHWH will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Most Christians believe this New Covenant is the "replacement" or "final fulfilment" of the Old Covenant described in the Old Testament and as applying to the People of God, while some believe both covenants are still applicable in a dual-covenant theology.
Ancient Near Eastern
The Hebrew term בְּרִית bĕriyth for "covenant" is from a root with the sense of "cutting", because pacts or covenants were made by passing between cut pieces of flesh of an animal sacrifice.There are two major types of covenants in the Hebrew Bible: the obligatory type and the promissory type. The obligatory covenant is more common with the Hittite peoples, and deals with the relationship between two parties of equal standing. In contrast, the promissory type of covenant is seen in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants. Promissory covenants focus on the relationship between the suzerain and the vassal and are similar to the "royal grant" type of legal document, which include historical introduction, border delineations, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses. In royal grants, the master could reward a servant for being loyal. God rewarded Abraham, Noah, and David in his covenants with them. As part of his covenant with Abraham, God has the obligation to keep Abraham's descendants as God's chosen people and be their God. God acts as the suzerain power and is the party of the covenant accompanied by the required action that comes with the oath whether it be fire or animals in the sacrificial oaths. In doing this, God is the party taking upon the curse if he does not uphold his obligation. Through history there were also many instances where the vassal was the one who performed the different acts and took the curse upon them.
Terminology
Weinfeld believes that similar terminology and wording can connect the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants with ancient Near Eastern grants, as opposed to being largely similar to the Mosaic covenant, which, according to Weinfeld, is an example of a suzerainty treaty. He goes on to argue that phrases about having a "whole heart" or having "walked after me with all his heart" strongly parallels with Neo-Assyrian grant language, such as "walked with royalty". He further argues that in Jeremiah, God uses prophetic metaphor to say that David will be adopted as a son. Expressing legal and political relationships through familial phraseology was common among Near Eastern cultures. Babylonian contracts often expressed fathership and sonship in their grants to actually mean a king to vassal relationship.Further underlying the idea that these covenants were grant-like in nature is the similar language used in both. In the grant of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian, to his servant Bulta, he describes Bulta's loyalty with the phrase "kept the charge of my kinship". Abraham similarly kept God's charge in Genesis 26: 4–5: "I will give to your descendants all these lands...in as much as Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my rules and my teachings."
Dissolution
According to Mendenhall, pressures from outside invaders led the loosely bound Israelite tribes to converge into monarchical unity for stability and solidarity. He also argues that during this consolidation, the new state also had to unify the religious traditions that belonged to the different groups to prevent dissent from those who might believe that the formation of a state would replace direct governance from God. Therefore, Mendenhall continues, these loosely bound tribes merged under the Mosaic covenant to legitimize their unity. They believed that to obey the law was to obey God. They also believed that the king was put into power as a result of God's benefaction, and that this accession was the fulfillment of God's promise of dynasty to David. Mendenhall also notes that a conflict arose between those who believed in the Davidic covenant, and those who believed that God would not support all actions of the state. As a result, both sides became relatively aloof, and the Davidic covenant and the Mosaic covenant were almost entirely forgotten.Biblical
Students of the Bible hold differing opinions as to how many major covenants were created between God and humanity, with numbers ranging from one to at least twelve. Some scholars classify only two: a covenant of promise and a covenant of law. The former involved an oath taken by God – a word of promise instead of command – while the latter is known in the Bible as "the Law".Noahic
The Noahic covenant recounted in Genesis 9:9-17 applies to all of humanity and all other living creatures. In this covenant with all living creatures, God promises never again to destroy all life on Earth by flood and creates the rainbow as the sign of this "everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth".Ahead of the covenant, Noah and the generations of his posterity were required by God to procreate, and not to shed human blood, because mankind was made in the image of God. Jews are forbidden to consume meat with the blood in it, but Bnei Noah Noahidism are allowed the blood of a living animal. Alexander Maclaren notes that while the term covenant "usually implies a reciprocal bond, both parties to which come under obligations by it, each to the other. But, in this case, there are no obligations on the part of man or of the creatures. This covenant is God's only." Samaritans who believe only in the Written Torah do not consider outsiders to be subject to Mosaic law or the patriarchal covenant but regardless considers the Noahic covenant to be Divine law that is not enforced nor envisioned in the lens of universalism but rather are a fundamental moral code which is to expected for a nation or culture to be considered virtuous outside the covenant. Foreigners are allotted different inheritances and powers outside of the Israelite people according to the book of Deuteronomy and the commentary of Memar Marqah.
Abrahamic
The book of Genesis includes a number of promises by God to Abraham paired with actions by Abraham, notably in Genesis 12, 15, 17, and 22. Only the promises of Genesis 15 and Genesis 17 are referred to in the text by the term "covenant".| Verses | Name | Abraham's action | God's promise |
| - | Migrates to the promised land | To make of Abraham a great nation and bless Abraham and make his name great so that he will be a blessing; to bless those who bless him and curse him who curses him; all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abraham. | |
| Covenant of the pieces or "Covenant between the parts" | Offers several animal sacrifices | To give Abraham's descendants all the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates. Later, this land came to be referred to as the Promised Land or the Land of Israel. | |
| Covenant of circumcision | Circumcises himself and his family, and commits to doing so in perpetuity. | To make Abraham the father of many nations and of many descendants and give "the whole land of Canaan" to his descendants. The covenant was for Abraham and his "seed", both of natural birth and adoption. | |
| - | Demonstrates willingness to sacrifice his son | To make Abraham's descendants as numerous as the stars and sand, and to defeat and inherit their enemies. |
The covenants with Abraham were later alluded to by Abraham, and their contents were reaffirmed to his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. In later generations, God's covenant with the patriarchs was repeatedly cited as a reason for God to perform kindness to their descendants, the people of Israel.
In the documentary hypothesis, the promises of Genesis 12, 15, and 17 are attributed to Jahwist, Elohist and Priestly sources.
Genesis 15
The Abrahamic covenant is part of a tradition of covenantal sacrifices that dates to the third millennium BC. The animals that are slaughtered in the covenant in Genesis 15 are considered a sacrificial offering. And it is that covenant which preserves the sacrificial element alongside the symbolic act.According to Weinfeld, the Abrahamic covenant represents a covenant of grant, which binds the suzerain. It is the obligation of the master to his servant and involves gifts given to individuals who were loyal serving their masters. In the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, it is God who is the suzerain who commits himself and swears to keep the promise. In the covenant there are procedures for taking the oath, which involve a smoking oven and a blazing torch. There are many similarities between Genesis 15 and the Abba-El deed. In Genesis 15 and similarly in the Abba-El deed, it is the superior party who places himself under oath. The oaths in both, moreover, involve a situation wherein the inferior party delivers the animals while the superior party swears the oath.