Covenant in the Old Testament (Essay Sample)

Covenant in the Old Testament
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Covenant in the Old Testament
In the Old Testament, the covenant was commonly used. Covenant refers to an agreement or a contract between two or more people. In Hebrew a covenant refers to an agreement between God and the people of Israel, where each party agrees to set rules and regulations and abiding must be there. A covenant also meant a contract God made with humanity, where God made promises to His people, and it required a binding.
In the Pentateuch, there are several covenants God made with humanity. The foremost covenant God made was with Noah. Many years before Abraham, God made a covenant with Noah. The covenant was about Noah building an ark that was to save God’s people. After the covenant, God assured Noah never to destroy His people again with the flood (Gen.9). Noah lived during the time when the world was filled with a lot of violence and corruption. Noah and his few people were not overcome by the human evils. Noah believed in God and did everything that God commanded him to do. According to Genesis, the covenant that God made here was about God’s believers and non-believers. God’s intentions here was to destroy the whole world with flood to sweep away all the evils people were doing (Padfield 2015).
The second covenant was God’s covenant with Abraham. In making this covenant God promised Abraham that He will bless Abraham’s descendants. Abraham was to remain faithful to God and serve as the path through which the whole world was to get blessings (Gen 12.11:31). Abraham’s story began when he was staying Ur. At the age of 75 years Abraham received a call from God where he was to a strange world. After moving to the strange world. God promised Abraham and his descendants a great nation. The promise was unbelievable to Abraham since his wife Sarah was childless, but later Abraham obeyed God. Abraham took his family and nephew, Lot and moved. He moved towards the south along the trade routes of Haran. The Lord promised to give him land and settle. The situation seemed difficult, but the Lord reaffirmed His promises to him. After Abraham agreed to move the new land and God made him be great nation (Walter 2012).
Another covenant God’s covenant with Moses. In this covenant, the Israelites had moved to Egypt and had been enslaved by Pharaoh. The Israelites were suffering and cried out for God’s help. God heard their groaning and entered into a covenant with Moses. This covenant was between God’s the people of Israel.
The covenant became the foundation of The Ten Commandments (Exo.24:4). After that, Moses wrote the binding agreements of the covenant down. Moses offered a sacrifice of unspotted she-goat to God. He sprinkled blood to the Israelites and read the book of law as a seal to the covenant. God promised Moses the day He was to make a new contract only when the Israelites were to remained obedient to Him.
In Deuteronomy living in covenant with God, meant following all the comm...