Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D
The term “covenant” (from the Latin, con, namely “with”, venire,
namely, “to come”) refers to “an agreement enacted between two parties in
which one or both promises, under oath, to perform or refrain certain actions
stipulated in advance” (ABD, 1/1179). The corresponding term in the Hebrew
Bible is berit, coming most likely from the Akkadian biritu, meaning a clasp or a fetter.
The Septuagint (3rd cent. BCE), which is the Greek translation of
the Hebrew Bible, renders it as diatheke, meaning “will” or “testament.”
Thus, Jews have the so-called “Old Testament” (a Christian term) and Christians
have the “New Testament.”
In the Hebrew Bible,
a covenant may be established in two different ways: a) Between two individuals, such as, the covenant signed
between King Solomon and King Hiram,
of the city of Tyre (I K 5:26), or
b) Between God
and human beings, such as the covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:9), or, with
Abraham (Gen. 15:18), with Phinehas, the priest (Num. 25: 12), with Joshua and
the people (Jos. 24:25), with Jehoiada, the priest, and the people (II K
11:17), with king Hezekiah and the people (II Chr.29:10), with Josiah and the
people (II K 23:3), with Ezra and the people (Ezra 10:3), and, the crown jewel,
with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai, through Moses (Ex.19:5). According to
the Rabbis, this covenant includes, not only the Ten Commandments but the
entire Torah (i.e., all the Hebrew Scriptures as interpreted by the ancient
sages).
The prophet Jeremiah
(6th cent BCE), spoke of a “new covenant” that will be signed in the future
between God and the Israelites (Jer.31:31), referring, most likely, to the
restoration of Israel after the Babylonian exile and the reconstruction of the
second Temple (See, Jewish Study Bible, p. 991). Christians, however,
reinterpret this passage as a prophecy through Jesus in the New Testament.
These covenantal
documents were mostly modelled after Hittite covenants of Anatolia (2nd
millennium BCE), either as parity or suzerainty (see examples in ANET, pp.
201ff). They followed a strict literary format that included the following
elements: 1. The identification of the covenant giver; 2. The historical
prologue; 3. The stipulations; 4. The provision for deposit and public reading;
5. The list of witnesses to the covenant; and 6. The blessings and curses as a
means of enforcement.
Even though, we have
many examples of treaties in the ancient Near East, the idea of covenant
between a deity and a people is unknown to us from other cultures. In fact, we
can state that this covenantal idea is a special feature of the Israelite
religion. Jewish sages of the past used the format of legal documents between
individuals and applied it to the special relationship between God and others.
In reality, the
concept of berit between God and Israel is more than an agreement
between two parties, and implies an
imposition on the part of the deity, as indicated in the Book of Psalms
by the expression, “He has commanded his covenant” (Ps. 111: 9). In so doing, God
literally “cuts” (karat) a covenant, as clearly stated in Aramaic as gzr
‘ady, by simply imposing unilaterally a pact on the biblical Israelites. The
idiom most likely comes from the ceremony that accompanies the covenant by
“cutting” (namely, slaughtering) an animal during a ritual.
How shall we view
this concept in our time? From the
perspective of a non-theistic religious naturalism, where God is conceived as
the energy of the universe, the idea of a personal God imposing a covenant is
hard to accept. Nature acts as it must according to its own rules, and does not
discriminate between people. It would be better, I would argue, to reinterpret
the covenant as a sign of our own commitment to a particular way of life. Thus,
when we say, God made a covenant with Jews, it really means that we are committing
ourselves to the pursuit of the high moral standards espoused by the Torah, the
text of the covenant. So, Jews can follow the teachings of the Torah as
interpreted by the Rabbis (the so-called The Old Testament) and Christians can
follow the teachings of the Gospels (the so- called the New Testament) as
interpreted by Christian teachers. And we all respect one another.
Date: 4/6/22
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