Many people find the Bible to be a closed book - even when it's open. But in every book of the Bible, in every chapter, God's love is written in letters twenty metres high. We just need to understand the background - especially in the "Old" Testament - ie the First Covenant. And the customs and usages of approximately 4000 to 3000 years ago are understandably obscure.
Take "covenant" for example. It's one of those mysterious old words one almost never hears any more. But in the days when most people were illiterate and there was no such thing as written guarantees and contract-law, the people of the ancient Near East used covenants as binding agreements between individuals, between tribes - and even tried to make them with their gods. When you start to understand covenant you start to understand not just the whole Old Testament but the New Testament as well, and God's modus operandi in each.
We take literacy for granted. The fact that you're reading what I'm typing now, however many months or years later, is something we don't even think about. In the days when writing was the preserve of professional scribes, however, you only ever had a very few things written down - a king's decree, his library of legal precedents, lists of tribute down to the last camel, and a few legends and stories worth preserving. Even wills and birth certificates simply didn't exist. Everything had to be verbal, and therefore surrounded by safeguards so that it could be watertight.
The illiterate tribesmen instituted the complicated but airtight institution of covenant. It was more than just a contract - it changed who you were. You were forever associated with the other party. It was a public expression of good faith, witnessed by the whole community, and often "stones of remembrance" were set up to remind passers-by that it had happened. It was permanent - and it was simple. It was binding and liberating; difficult but easy. And if you tried to wriggle out of it, the other person was legally obliged to kill you. So of course, it was only entered into on the most special of occasions (like marriage, for example!)
Imagine two tribes - tribe A and tribe B (Mmmm, Survivor - the Ancient Near East?). They were at war for years and years, until both were depleted, starving and in danger of being wiped out by tribe C. Tribes A and B realised that tribe C was interested in destroying both of them one by one. So they would decide to unite: Unfortunately, what was to stop individual tribesmen fighting over who stole great-grandfather's wife or donkey? Or tribe-members forming alliances against other tribe-members and plotting secretly? They therefore would "cut" a covenant - something like the "blood-brother" ceremony as practised in Middle-Eastern and Indigenous American cultures[1]. They would become tribe AB.
Every member of both tribes would gather for a complex, symbolic and rather barbarous ceremony. They would take certain animals - usually oxen or heifers, although sheep, goats and doves might be used as well - slaughter them, and cut them in half from nose to tail, letting the halves fall open so that the blood would pool between them. Of course, the blood would go everywhere - blood being then, as now, a powerful symbol of life. The life is in the blood (this is why God forbade eating or drinking it, which probably also involved a witchcraft ritual at the time). The tribal leaders would then stand on opposite sides of the carcases, and walk towards each other, through the pools of blood.
Now came the important bit: in the centre, the leaders would begin to exchange their possessions. If you are in covenant with someone, what's yours is theirs and what's theirs is yours. It's about perfect reciprocity. The leaders would exchange all their trappings of office - the cloak symbolising their office, their sandles responsibility and power of attorney, their swords leadership in war and their rings the authority of their positions. They would then exchange names - becoming each other, or they would double-barrel both names, becoming halves of a new hybrid person.
The other important facet of the ceremony involved making a wound in a prominent place - like a hand or forearm - and making sure it scarred so that it wouldn't fade. This was additional proof that the covenant existed.
Covenants were important social occasions, emphasising public relationships in a way that was seen and remembered. When Isaac?Jacob? made a covenant at Beersheba [be'er-she'va] he killed seven ewes and set up stones of remembrance. It is still remembered today: Beersheba means "well of seven".
Covenants often had a "mediator", a disinterested third party, who would observe the two participators to ensure they kept the terms. If either side broke faith, it would be the job of the mediator to kill the defaulter. Conversely, any disputes between both parties would be negotiated and solved through the office of the mediator. This is why Job cried out If only there were a mediator between God and me! - he felt God was treating him badly, but he had no recourse to solve his grievance, and God refused to speak to him.
Abram came from Ur of the Chaldees, a very sophisticated city. Most of the houses were large, double-storied edifices and there is evidence that the inhabitants even had flushing toilets! However, it's likely that Abram was a nomad living near the outskirts, as "Hebrew" seems to derive from a description of a nomadic class of non-city dweller. Ur was the center of the worship of Namma, a moon deity, and his wife. It's quite likely that there were temples to other gods from nearby cities. These gods, like Inanna (Ishtar), had rites that we might find a little strange, involving cloisters (called gipar) in which dwelt colleges of priestesses called en, who were often headed by the daughters of the king[2].
They were not nuns but "concubines" of the god - worship involved the high priests and priestesses coupling, usually on public altar-platforms. The fertility of the land was directly linked to the fertility of the gods and goddesses, and most were associated with temple-prostitution of both sexes. Kings were often the en of the goddess Inanna, playing the part of her husband/son Dumuzi (Tammuz) and consorting her via her chief priestess. With all the state-sponsored promiscuity, venereal disease was rife, and the life-expectancy of a temple prostitute was approximately twenty-seven. Divination and sorcery were considered the only means of curing illness and discerning the future; people lived by recording every possible occurence and then trying to find out what it meant. They used the livers and entrails of animals to try to get a good omen from their gods, and if they didn't, they kept trying until they got a favourable result.
The major gods were each associated with a particular city; for example Marduk (Bel) was the titulary deity of Babylon. Mordecai was named after this deity; Daniel was renamed "Bel-teshazzar", although from the text it seems he stuck to his Hebrew name, as even the Queen Dowager called him "Daniel, whom the king named Bel-teshazzar" [Daniel means "God judges"]. This is the atmosphere from which Abram came.
Abram's name meant "exalted father"; the Chaldean representation was a noose with a dagger through it. Which gives an idea of the original human nature of Abram, but God doesn't look at human nature, or human failings. He works on our belief. It was through Abram's belief that God could do amazing things in his life, even though he was at bottom a liar and a weasel. God can work on us in spite of ourselves: He provides the perfection in the relationship.
Leaving this environment at God's behest, Abram travelled from northern Iraq to Syria, to a city called Haran. Some years later, he carried on travelling into Canaan, the Promised Land. God promised the childless Abram that his descendants would be as innumerable as sand on a beach or stars in the sky; cliches for us, but it's only when you take a handful of sand and try to count the grains that you almost grasp it - or see a sky unobscured by bright city lights. To show God's good intentions, He told Abram to prepare a covenant, a binding ceremony Abram would have understood at once.
Abram slaughtered four animals - ox, heifer, sheep, dove - cut them in haalf lengthways, and sat down to wait. He dozed off a few times, waking up to chase away the vultures. At sunset he fell into a sort of trance; God appeared to him in the form of a lighted torch, and came through the animals towards Abram. But then He went back through the carcases, thus accepting responsibility for Abram's side of the deal. All Abram had to do was accept the terms, which were to the thousandth generation:
I will bless those who bless you;
I will curse those who curse you;
And through you I will bless all the nations.
And remember, in a covenant, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine; when Abram gave God everything he had, God could give him everything He has - and who do you think got the better part of the deal? (And I'm not talking about material things: spiritual and emotional prosperity leaves financial in the shade). When Abram made covenant with God, God gave him and Sarai each an "H" from His name, YHWH - the eternal "I Am that I Am", the covenant name of God - and they became Abraham (father of a multitude) and Sarah (mother of a multitude). Of course, it took fifteen years for the fulfilment of God's promises to come to pass: Their son Isaac was born.
Throughout the Bible, God interacts with humanity in terms of His covenant-relationship with them. His loving "remembrance" of His covenant with the Israelites in spite of their disregard of Him is a theme which is repeated constantly. Whenever they called on God in terms of their covenant with Him, He came running; whenever they tried to "put God in his place" and keep Him quiet with sacrifices, He disregarded their wants. God said again and again: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice". He didn't need their sacrifices; what he wanted was their participation in a love-relationship with Him.
All of the Bible is delineated and explained, therefore, by this covenant-relationship. It wasn't that the people chose God; in fact, God chose them. Even when they were weaker, sillier or more venal than someone better qualified. In the Bible, this is called "election", the choice of a person by God to fulfil a position or function. A shepherd boy might not seem a good choice, but David went on to become ancient Israel's finest king, statesman, composer and general. And God covenanted with David that he would never cease to have a descendant on the throne of Israel, meaning (and David understood the implication at once) that Israel's Messiah would come from David's line. This honour was so great David could barely conceive of it; all he could do was fall down and worship God for such great love and mercy. This is called the Davidic covenant.
Between the Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants lay the covenant with Moses which involved the Law. This Mosaic covenant is described in the prophets as having been broken. No other covenant God made involves the participation of human beings. Nothing anyone can do can break them. They involve election, not performance!
Think about it: the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants are still in effect. This means that they still apply to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's descendants today. And they cannot be broken. Ever.
With the knowledge that covenant is a binding forever-commitment between two people, we can understand the kind of relationship God wants to have with us. So many times we think God has a little checklist we have to measure up to, some rigid guideline of perfection. We beat ourselves up over every little sin. We condemn ourselves to an eternity of guilt and low self-image, over what we should be doing. It's a vicious cycle that tortures us with the image of what we ought, should, could, need to... not just being who we are. So who are we?
"I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus." I am the evidence of the covenant, living proof of God's forgiving love. I have the mind of Christ. I am redeemed. Bought back without money for I was stolen without payment. I show the death and resurrection of Christ to the world and say I'M FREE! The law of the Spirit of Life has set me free from the law of sin and death. I belong to the King of the Universe, who calls each star by name; by his great power not one of them is missing. I don't belong to sin anymore; it cannot master me for I can plead the blood - He paid the price on the cross as a sacrifice, the penalty of my disobedience and falling short of perfection is already paid. The only one with a claim on me is ME. God sets us free and says to us: Now what? What do you choose to do with this freedom?
But then you fall short of perfection again and your conscience hits you, the condemnation that you aren't perfect, worthy of God's perfect love. But we are not called to be perfect. We are called to be free. And in our freedom, out of our love and gratitude we serve our Creator with our whole heart. He doesn't care that we are imperfect, fallen, and fallible; we just rest in His love. All we do is wait on Him. He does the rest. He's already saved the world. We don't have to.
I'm a child of the Father. A son of the King. Children call their father Daddy, which is Abba in Hebrew. A great king is "Majesty" to others, but to his beloved children he is Daddy. And all we do is rest in God's love and wait for His commands. If we run off and try to do everything under our own power, we are not waiting for Him. So rest in God's covenant of love. Let Him do it. Let Him use you, in His time and in His way. And be content. Christ Jesus is our mediator, and God keeps both sides of the arrangement. And if the covenant is broken, Jesus has already died to pay the penalty - such is God's incredible grace that all we do is trust and receive and bask in His love. And as we grow in grace and truth, He will use us as witnesses without us even noticing.
I can't give a precise bibliography for all of this as I've simply absorbed it over the years. I learnt about covenant at my Thursday morning Bible study, mostly, and Benny Hinn's The Blood was very helpful. You might want to read it for the in-depth study on the subject, as well as the sheer spiritual power of it.
I lifted this out of a book called The First Empires by Nicholas Postgate, Phaidon Press, Oxford, 1977.