THEOLOGY OF COVENANT: AN OLD TESTAMENT PERSPECTIVE

OUTLINE

I. Prominence of the Covenant

II. Hesed Foundation of the Covenant

III. Moral Imperative of the Covenant

IV. Relational Nexus of the Covenant

V. Ethical Prescriptions of the Covenant

A. Shalom

B. Love

C. Justice

VI. Conclusion

V. End Notes

VI. Bibliography

THEOLOGY OF ‘COVENANT’: AN OLD TESTAMENT PERSPECTIVE

Prominence of the Covenant

The distinctive structure and theology of the biblical covenant in the Old Testament found its foci in the Hebrew word berith. Occurring over 280 times in the text, an expansive semantic range was employed by various translations including ‘agreement’ (Nehemiah 9:8 CEV), ‘treaty’ (1 Kings 15:19 NASB), ‘compact (1 Chronicles 11:3 NIV), ‘pact’ (Job 31:1 Msg), ‘bargain’ (Hosea 12:1 RSV),‘pledge’ (Isaiah 49:8 NLT), and ‘league’ (Joshua 9:6 KJV).[1] Though often generally defined in popular usage as a binding agreement between two parties, the biblical concept of ‘covenant’ was linguistically intended to be more personal than a contract, involving a measure of mutual loyalty and allegiance.

‘Covenant’ is considered to be one of the primary biblical categories of Old Testament theology since the relationship between God and those who have pledged faithfulness and obedience to Him were mediated through specific covenants enacted throughout the narrative. This contextual distinctive supplied the exegetical framework for interpreting the theological themes of the Bible, such as love, redemption, justification, and righteousness. Illustrating the eminent significance attributed to the covenant motif pervading the Scriptures, J. E. Leonard depicted the covenant as “the air which Scripture breathes.”[2] Unfortunately, the covenant’s conceptual richness was often subsumed under the same devotional and salvific metaphors that it was designed to elucidate, causing some scholars to lament, “in the face of our persistent reduction of covenant thought to a personal relation to a saving God, we have largely lost the wider importance of covenantalism as the basis for our common life within the fullness of God’s creation.”[3]

Hesed Foundation of the Covenant

However, despite the noted strain of cynicism over interpretive fragmentation that wallows in abstraction, the praxis of the theology of covenant must be grounded in God’s character and will. The significance of the covenant was only elucidated through divine self-disclosure, which was endowed in the requisite word hesed (also chesed or khesed). As one of the primary revelatory words used by God to describe His nature in the Old Testament, hesed was traditionally translated as mercy, kindness, steadfast love, or loving-kindness. However, while the modern cultural usage of mercy suggests feelings of empathy and compassion or the idea of forbearing deserved punishment, the Hebrew concept of hesed was “support of the covenanted partner with a sincere heart.”[4] Thus, the essence of hesed focused on the best interest of the other covenanted party, captured best linguistically by the idea of loving concern, that provided aid for his welfare that went far beyond the codified stipulations.

God’s hesed character also set the narrative base of the covenant, the heritage of divine deliverance. The Noahic Covenant was heralded upon the assumption of Noah’s preservation through the Flood (Genesis 6:17-18). The covenant with Abraham anticipated his safety despite adverse conditions, such as famine, unfriendly indigenous neighbors, or nature, which relocation to a new land might bring (recorded in Genesis 12). Both the Sinaic Covenant and Deuteronomic Covenant renewal were constituted on the antecedent redemptive work of God during the Exodus (Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 5:6). Each divine deliverance and subsequent covenant was not simply a liberation from prevailing circumstances, but the invitation to fashion a contrasting society in sharp divergence to current conventions, serving as meditative witness to God’s redemptive grace.[5] By declaring His nature inseparable from His covenantal action (Deuteronomy 7:9), God affirmed by His hesed nature that He was the hope of all mankind (Isaiah 54: 8, 10). The same message concerning humanity’s deliverance due to God’s hesed character was celebrated in every verse of Psalm 136. This evidence plausibly indicates the polemics of all other theology concerning God were ancillary to His hesed character.

Moral Imperative of the Covenant

Princeton Theological Seminary ethics professor Max Stackhouse claimed the “socio-theological idea of covenant is so rich with ethical content that it gives meaning to all it touches.”[6] Founded upon God’s hesed character, the moral imperative of the covenant was interpreted by the vision of God’s kingdom or reign. The covenant was designed to serve as the organizing ethos of the believing community (i.e. Noah, Abraham, Israel, or the Church), allowing them to model God’s grace and proclaim His plan of redemption for the world. Eugene Merrill, professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, expands on God’s foreordained design as revealed through the Old Testament:

Man, having sinned and so having forfeited his privileges as regent, was brought back to fellowship with God by sovereign grace so that he could resume his privileges as spelled out in the Adamic mandate. In that condition, with his liabilities and imperfections, the believing remnant community would model before the world the meaning of dominion and would proclaim and mediate the saving blessings of the Lord to it. The patriarchal seed, Israel herself, was that remnant, a nation that would exist as a microcosm of the kingdom of God and the vehicle through which the messianic king would come to reign over all creation (Gen 49:10).[7]

The history of the world is a testimony of the consequences of man’s rebellion against his Creator. Only the discernment of God’s purposes through the lens of His covenantal action provided a proper interpretation of the seeming meaninglessness rotations of earth’s peoples and their dramas.[8] In its agential role, the covenant embodied the promise of a holistic salvation that would provide deliverance from the violence, injustice, unrighteousness, and misery that characterized human life. It mirrored the ideals of peace, justice, and forgiveness that were to mark the reign of God’s kingdom. Thus, while the full consummation awaited the eschatological fulfillment of the Lord’s reign “over them in Mount Zion from now on and forever” (Micah 4:7), the covenant imparted an ethical paradigm that was “a morally informed pact of public character between God and humanity,” engendering norms that were prescriptive of the community’s civic constructs and polity.[9] This criterion explicated the promissory nature of the covenant.

All covenants included promises, even if only intrinsically. Abraham was given a promise he would be the “father of many nations” (Genesis 17:4). At Sinai God assured the Israelites, “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all peoples” (Exodus 19:5). Often specified through a list of stipulations, the ‘if-then’ language established the obligatory parameters for both parties, including certain rights and privileges, ensuring they would not be disregarded with impunity without recourse. The spheres of responsibility and function invoked by the words of the covenant were determined by the effectual relationship created by consent to its precepts.

Relational Nexus of the Covenant

The moral nature of the covenant had many dimensions within the scriptural text, each interconnected through a relational nexus. While berith is used many times to reference a mutual covenant between human parties who voluntarily accept the terms of the arrangement (i.e. the covenant between Jacob and Laban in Genesis 31:44), the preponderance of covenant theology was communicated through the covenants initiated and established by God. Forging a reciprocating union between God and the chosen party by which the constituents are mutually oriented towards each other, the celestial-authored covenant “shapes the relational identity of both the divine agent and communal recipient in a relationship of correspondence.”[10] Thus, the covenant was designed to link people together by providing the basis for interpersonal, community, and deity-humanity communion. William Brown, Aubrey Lee Brooks Professor of Biblical Theology at Union Theological Seminary, expounded on its theocentric origin: “At the heart of covenant making is the creation of a people in conjunctione [sic]: the horizontal formation of corporate identity and the vertical establishment of communal identity.”[11]

The relational identity dimension of the covenant had two main components inextricably bonded together. The national character of the vassal was juxtaposed with that of the individual. One was not accentuated at the expense of the other. The Mosaic Covenant, for instance, was protracted in the backdrop of a Hebrew society that was built upon a collaborative structure in which the identification of the individual with his clan was so close that it was legitimate to speak of a ‘corporate personality’ in the sense that every individual “represented in his person the rest of the tribe.”[12] Yet, while the individual’s covenant responsibilities were socially embedded in contingent tribal understandings, his merit was not reduced to an anatomical status. The covenant, in other words, did not affirm or foster a self-less collectivism. To ensure the proper balance, the covenantal language sought to maintain both sides of the polarity of individualism and community, “keeping the individual from being only a function of the collective well-being” while ensuring the community is not an “accidental convergence of individual interests.”[13] The covenant, therefore, was the quintessential symbol of proper relationships.

The corporate identity of the vassal in God’s covenantal plan was determined by its utilitarian purpose. Abraham was told to “go to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1), serving as a witness to the covenantal faithfulness of God. The blessings and promises of God were not dependent on the capabilities or intellect of Abraham, but the elective purposes of God’s hesed character. Likewise, Israel’s role as a meditative people was already implicit in the patriarchal covenant statements (Genesis 18:18-19; 26:3-4) and stated unequivocally in Exodus 19:6. “For just as the priest did not serve for his own sake but only as a means of bridging a gap between worshiper and the worshiped, so Israel was made a priestly nation to achieve communion between man and God.”[14] The covenant, therefore employed a series of prescriptive stipulations intended to provide a coherent ethical practicum for a particular people, both collectively and individually, chosen for a special task.

Ethical Prescriptions of the Covenant

Shalom

Many contemporary scholars attest a significant portion of the biblical covenant form was an apotheosis of the common Hittite treaty format. The covenant code of Exodus 20-23, the entire Book of Deuteronomy, and Joshua 24 have been extensively compared to the structure of a Hittite suzerain-vassal treaty by which a vassal state would pledge its allegiance to the conquering overlord (suzerain) to avoid further conflict. The biblical covenant, however, went beyond the normative intent of secular peace; instead it was designed to effect shalom. Shalom was not a peace just characterized by the absence of hostility, but a positive state of order and harmony based on justice and righteousness (Isaiah 32:17).[15] The actualization of shalom within the experience of the covenant community required a moral foundation that protected the community from fragmentation due to the inherent self-centerness of humanity (Jeremiah 17:19; actually evidenced in Judges 21:25). The covenant, therefore, outlined a series of stipulations or codes that had both social and judicial implications whose tenets were rooted in the divine hesed character, which served as an antidote for rigid legalism.

The Ten Commandments were the heart of the covenant stipulations providing ethical prescriptions that acted as a manifestation of God’s hesed character so His people could embody the moral nature of the divine. Despite the historical proclivity to treat the biblical law as a repository of regulations, Lehman explains that the tone of the Decalogue was not “This is what you had better do or else!” but rather, “seeing you are who you are, where you are, and as you are, this is the way ahead, the way of being and living in truth, the way of freedom.”[16] Naturally, as with God’s own hesed nature, the prescriptive mandates of the Mosaic Law’s precepts embraced the dynamic tension between love and justice with the explicit motive of advancing the best interest of the other party and effecting communal shalom.

Love

While society constructed various idiomatic caricatures in a feeble attempt to quantify its scope, love only found its true context within a covenantal relationship. The covenant specifically invited the covenanted party to participate in an intimate mutuality with the same fullness of love that God displayed toward His people. Through its ethical dimension, the will to do good, love emphasized caring for what a person needed in order to fulfill his role in the community and transformed the seemingly negative prohibitions of the code into positive prescriptions that spoke to the vitality of the individual life and the harmony of the social order. Smedes provides two illustrative examples:

“Love tells us that ‘thou shall not kill’ means we must care for our neighbor by doing all we can to foster and nourish the life of another person. ‘Thou shall not lie’ means we must care for our neighbor by doing all we can to protect our neighbor from lies about him.”[17]

Quickened by its ethical imperative, the operative language of love encompassed compassion, devotion, mercy, and a host of other expressions. God gracious actions toward His chosen covenanted partners were the inspiration for them to act with the same efficacious beneficence. However, the language of love as articulated in the covenant was intended to be interpreted within the relationship between a king and his vassal, “intimating a meaning as virtually synonymous with ‘obedience’ (Deuteronomy 10:12, 11:1, 11:13, 11:22).”[18] Obedience was to be expressed in the forms of loyalty, commitment, and responsibility with the Mosaic Law as the primary mechanism for its actualization. Faithfulness, therefore, was not prized as a shield against holy reprisals of broken rules, but rather demonstrated gratitude for God’s overtures of love bestowed upon the recipient. Conversely, disobedience was extremely serious since it was a direct rejection of the unmerited favor that inaugurated the covenant and a refusal to allow shalom for the community.

Justice

Co-extensive with covenantal love was covenantal justice (Micah 6:8). Love protected justice from becoming harsh and legalistic. Justice prevented love from becoming sentimental and trite. Two important connotations of biblical justice were covenant fidelity and righteousness. Both were based on equal regard for the rights, needs, and equity of each member of the community. Thus, justice was understood in relational terms since all of the stipulations evolved from the same two relational commandments on which hung “all the law and the prophets.”[19] The judicial process could not be done in isolation. However, there was a special emphasis on the poor, widows, and social outcasts. It was not enough to give alms, but to advocate on their behalf (Proverbs 31:9). Thus, justice of the community was measured by its treatment of its disaffected citizens. Burghardt provided the rationale, “Justice is not equal treatment; justice is appropriate treatment that will equalize the relationship and provide access to resources” (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:17-22).[20] Thompson elaborated, “The aim is not to bring down the rich but to remove the crippling obstacles,” such as poverty and crime, “so that everyone had enough.”[21]

While biblical justice mandated fidelity to the demands of the relationship, man’s morally vacuous self-interest nature often pervaded the covenant community. It caused him to devise a complex cultic system that venerated the Law itself instead of its Creator. Instead of serving as the source of abundant life, its rigid do’s and don’ts crushed the spirits of its worshippers, leading them to outright apostasy. The narratives of Scripture chronicled the cyclical struggle for community, of lapses into disintegration, division, enmity, repentance, and restoration.[22] Israel, for instance, failed to learn that the covenant’s injunctions did not restrict life; instead led the way to its enlargement. Thus, unlike the current symbolic image of a blindfolded figure of justice with scales in both hands, the extensive matrix of commands were intended as proactive transforming initiatives of reconciliation and restoration. This in turn created a causal relationship between justice and shalom (Isaiah 32:17).

However, although the covenant recognized a communal approach of justice to address institutional evils, meaningful living was predicated on the exercise of freedom of choice and personal responsibility. Each person was to model covenantal justice through personal righteousness, evidenced by a lifestyle of integrity. Like love, righteousness was also defined in terms of obedience. Sin, therefore, was the refusal of the responsibility to act righteous within the covenanted community (Deuteronomy 15:9).

Conclusion

Consistent with God’s inexhaustible hesed character, the covenant was designed to establish a unique intimate relationship between “a God so near” (Deuteronomy 4:7) and a divinely elected group of people whose identity and conduct were inseparably intertwined (Deuteronomy 14:2). It involved a simultaneously passive and active element by which free parties agreed to be bound into an ordered relationship with a holy God that limited their autonomy but liberated them from arbitrary rule. It was the ideal societal model and intended to have a long legacy. Unfortunately, Stackhouse has reminded us that man, in his self-determination, has had a long engagement with a variety of social ‘isms’ (Marxism, modernism, communism, et al.) that dispense with God, all verifiably disastrous.[23] However, the covenant was never proven to be fallacious, though its usefulness was often mitigated due to the unfaithfulness of the human partner. The current covenant with the Church is God’s chosen system to execute His reign until He returns. The vitality of the Christian life is conditioned upon a proper participation in God’s kingdom through obedience to the Great Commission of displaying His hesed nature to the unredeemed world. This can only be done as God’s covenanted vassal. Thus, due to God’s cosmic sovereignty, the covenant’s “perdurability is assured, invulnerable to all historical exigencies and contingencies”.[24]

END NOTES

[1]Contemporary English Version (CEV), New York: American Bible Society, 1995; New American Standard Bible (NASB), Anaheim, CA: Foundation Press, 1973; New International Version (NIV), Colorado Springs: International Bible Society, 1978; The Message (Msg), Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1993; Revised Standard Version (RSV), New York: American Bible Society, 1952; New Living Translation (NLT), Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996; King James Version (KJV).

2J.E. Leonard. I will be Their God: Understanding the Covenant. (Kirkland, Ill: Laudermont Press, 1992), 9.

3William Johnson Everett. “Recovering the Covenant.” (Christian Century, n 10, 1999), 1097.

4Mont W. Smith. What the Bible Says About Covenant. (Joplin, MS: College Press, 1981), 161.

5C.W. Christian. Covenant and Commandment: A Study of the Ten Commandments in the Context of Grace. (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2004), 16.

6Max L. Stackhouse. “The Moral Meanings of Covenant.” (Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996), 249.

7Eugene Merrill. “A Theology of the Pentateuch.” In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament. Edited by Roy Zuck. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 30.

8Christian, 25.

9Daniel J. Elazar. “The Biblical Covenant as the Foundation of Justice, Obligations, and Rights.” (Internet: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Accessed 7/05/05 at <www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/bibcov.htm>), Single Document.

10William P. Brown. “The Character of Covenant in the Old Testament: A Theocentric Probe.” (Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996), 285.

11Ibid.

12Jacob Jocz. The Covenant: A Theology of Human Destiny. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 78.

13Eric Mount. “The Currency of Covenant.” (Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996), 301-302.

14Merrill, 13.

15David McIlroy. A Biblical View of Law and Justice. (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 2004), 49.

16Paul Lehmann. The Decalogue and a Human Future. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 41-42.

17Lewis B. Smedes. Mere Morality. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 16.

18A. Mayes. New Century Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy. (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1981), 176.

19Codified by Jesus in Matthew 22:40.

20Walter J. Burghardt. Justice: A Global Adventure. (New York: Orbis Books, 2004), 13.

21Milburn J. Thompson. Justice and Peace: A Christian Primer 2^nd ed. (New York: Orbis Books, 2003), 51.

22Christian, 15.

23Stackhouse, 264.

24Brown, 289.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, William P. “The Character of Covenant in the Old Testament: A Theocentric Probe.” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996: 283-293.

Burghardt, Walter J. Justice: A Global Adventure. New York: Orbis Books, 2004.

Christian, C.W. Covenant and Commandment: A Study of the Ten Commandments in the Context of Grace. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2004.

Elazar, Daniel J. “The Biblical Covenant as the Foundation of Justice, Obligations, and Rights.” Internet: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Accessed at <http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/bibcov.htm>

Everett, William Johnson. “Recovering the Covenant.” Christian Century, n 10, 1999: 1094-1097.

Jocz, Jakob. The Covenant: A Theology of Human Destiny. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968.

Leonard, J. E. I will be Their God: Understanding the Covenant. Kirkland, Ill: Laudermont Press, 1992.

Lehmann, Paul. The Decalogue and a Human Future. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Mayes, A. New Century Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981.

Merrill, Eugene. “A Theology of the Pentateuch.” In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament. Edited by Roy Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

McIlroy, David. A Biblical View of Law and Justice. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 2004.

Mount, Eric. “The Currency of Covenant.” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996: 295-310.

Smedes, Lewis B. Mere Morality. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.

Smith, Mont W. What the Bible Says About Covenant. Joplin, MS: College Press, 1981.

Stackhouse, Max L. “The Moral Meanings of Covenant.” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996: 249-264.

Thompson, Milburn J. Justice and Peace: A Christian Primer, 2^nd ed. New York: Orbis Books, 2003.

[2]J.E. Leonard. I will be Their God: Understanding the Covenant. (Kirkland, Ill: Laudermont

Press, 1992), 9.

[3]William Johnson Everett. “Recovering the Covenant.” (Christian Century, n 10, 1999), 1097.

[4]Mont W. Smith. What the Bible Says About Covenant. (Joplin, MS: College Press, 1981), 161.

[5]C.W. Christian. Covenant and Commandment: A Study of the Ten Commandments in the Context of Grace. (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2004), 16.

[6]Max L. Stackhouse. “The Moral Meanings of Covenant.” (Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996), 249.

[7]Eugene Merrill. “A Theology of the Pentateuch.” In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament. Edited by Roy Zuck. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 30.

[9]Daniel J. Elazar. “The Biblical Covenant as the Foundation of Justice, Obligations, and Rights.” (Internet: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Accessed 7/05/05 at <www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/bibcov.htm>), Single Document.

[10]William P. Brown. “The Character of Covenant in the Old Testament: A Theocentric Probe.” (Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996), 285.

[12]Jacob Jocz. The Covenant: A Theology of Human Destiny. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 78.

[13]Eric Mount. “The Currency of Covenant.” (Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996), 301-302.

[15]David McIlroy. A Biblical View of Law and Justice. (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 2004), 49.

[16]Paul Lehmann. The Decalogue and a Human Future. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 41-42.

[17]Lewis B. Smedes. Mere Morality. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 16.

[18]A. Mayes. New Century Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy. (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1981), 176.

[20]Walter J. Burghardt. Justice: A Global Adventure. (New York: Orbis Books, 2004), 13.

[21]Milburn J. Thompson. Justice and Peace: A Christian Primer 2^nd ed. (New York: Orbis Books, 2003), 51.