This article looks at the covenant between God and the Jewish people; a thread running throughout the early parts of the Bible and one of the vital pillars of Judaism.
The First Covenant
Last updated 2009-06-25
God and Abraham
The covenant between God and the Jewish people is a thread running throughout the early parts of the Bible, and one of the vital pillars of Judaism.
God asks Abraham to do certain things, in return for which he will take special care of them.
The covenant between God and Jews is the basis for the idea of the Jews as the chosen people.
The first covenant was between God and Abraham.
Jewish men are circumcised as a symbol of this covenant.
You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
Genesis 17
God promised to make Abraham the father of a great people and said that Abraham and his descendants must obey God.
In return God would guide them and protect them and give them the land of Israel.
But it wasn’t simply a matter of obeying rules - God didn't just want the Jews to follow a particular set of laws, but to live their lives in such a way as to show the world that God actually was the one and only all-powerful God, whom people should follow and worship.
Abraham and Isaac
God ordered Abraham to abandon his way of life and leave his home country to live in the land of Canaan.
Abraham was 99 at the time, so this was a hard thing to ask. The LORD said
Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
Genesis 12:1-2
This promise that Abraham would become the father of a great nation seemed impossible, since Abraham was very old, and his wife Sarah (90) had never been able to have children.
But God did cause Sarah to become pregnant with Isaac.
- By doing this God showed that he was in control of even the processes of nature like having children.
- God also showed that in order to keep his promises to his chosen people he would intervene in the world and alter it.
Later, God tested Abraham’s obedience by ordering him to kill his much-loved son Isaac as a sacrifice.
Abraham didn’t argue with God, he kept his side of the covenant and prepared to sacrifice Isaac. God stopped him from killing his son, but the story remains as a perfect example of the level of obedience that God expected.
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