Covenant (biblical)
In form and terminology, these covenants echo the kinds of treaty agreements existing in the surrounding ancient world.
Promissory covenants focus on the relationship between the suzerain and the vassal and are similar to the "royal grant" type of legal document, which include historical introduction, border delineations, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses.
Babylonian contracts often expressed fathership and sonship in their grants to actually mean a king to vassal relationship.
"[6] According to Mendenhall, pressures from outside invaders led the loosely bound Israelite tribes to converge into monarchical unity for stability and solidarity.
Therefore, Mendenhall continues, these loosely bound tribes merged under the Mosaic covenant to legitimize their unity.
[7] Students of the Bible hold differing opinions as to how many major covenants were created between God and humanity, with numbers ranging from one to at least twelve.
[12] Alexander Maclaren notes that while the term covenant "usually implies a reciprocal bond, both parties to which come under obligations by it, each to the other.
[4] The Mosaic covenant made with Moses and the Israelite people at Horeb-Sinai, which is found in Exodus 19–24 and the book of Deuteronomy, contains the foundations of the written Torah.
As part of the terms of this covenant, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17); these are later embellished or elaborated on in the rest of the Torah.
The tablets of the Ten Commandments were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, and this became the symbol of the Israelite nation, and of God's presence with His people.
Thus when King David wanted to establish Jerusalem as his own capital city he brought the Ark there (2 Sam 6).
"[24] Christian theologian John F. Walvoord maintains that the Davidic covenant deserves an important place in determining the purposes of God and that its exegesis confirms the doctrine of a future reign of Christ on earth.
[33] While Jewish theologians have always held that Jesus did not fulfill the expectations of a Jewish messiah, Dispensational (historically grammatically literal) biblical theologians are almost unanimous that Jesus will fully fulfill the Davidic covenant, the provisions of which Walvoord lists as: The New Covenant is a biblical interpretation originally derived from a phrase in the Book of Jeremiah, in the Hebrew Scriptures.
It is often thought of as an eschatological Messianic Age or world to come and is related to the biblical concept of the Kingdom of God.
Generally, Christians believe that the New Covenant was instituted at the Last Supper as part of the Eucharist, which in the Gospel of John includes the New Commandment.
[38] In the Christian context, this New Covenant is associated with the word 'testament' in the sense of a 'will left after the death of a person', the instructions for the inheritance of property (Latin testamentum),[39] the original Greek word used in Scripture being diatheke (διαθήκη)[40] which in the Greek context only meant 'will (left after death)' and virtually never 'covenant, alliance'.
[41] This fact implies a reinterpreted view of the Old Testament covenant as possessing characteristics of a 'will left after death' in Christian theology and has generated considerable attention from biblical scholars and theologians.
The Mosaic covenant is referred to in a number of places in the Quran[43][44][45][46] as a reminder for the Jews, of whom two tribes inhabited Medina at the time of Muhammad.
