Covenant Culture in Ancient Times

A year and a half ago, I was wrapping up a two-year stint at Revival Fire Bible School, where I served as an interpreter for Pastor Roger Finch. His vast knowledge of the Bible made a deep impression on me.

During that time, many things in the Bible took on entirely new meaning for me. One of the biggest breakthroughs in my own understanding came from learning the background to Genesis 15. An entire teaching series could be devoted to it, but here I will give some background on biblical covenant rituals and then briefly look at a few details from that chapter.

The Meaning of Covenants in the World of the Scriptures

At the time the Bible was written, covenants carried a completely different weight than they do today. In our time, the idea of covenant has undergone a kind of “inflation.” It no longer carries such binding force that there would be no way, one way or another, to break free from it. We can see this, for example, in divorce statistics at the individual level, and covenants between nations are also broken.

The world of biblical times, however, was very different. Wars were common, along with the problems and crime they brought with them. People had far fewer means of protecting themselves against threats than we do today, and this gave covenants great importance. What kind of covenant you had made, and with whom, could make a crucial difference in something as basic as survival.

A covenant was such a serious matter that you literally “placed your life in the other person’s hands.” It meant being willing to take responsibility for the life of your covenant partner as well. So it mattered greatly who you were in covenant with and what kind of person they were. In any case, this was someone into whose hands you could entrust your life.

One of the signs of a covenant was a cut made in the palm of the hand with a knife. Ash was rubbed into the wound so that, once it healed, it left a scar. When people raised their hands in greeting or otherwise exposed their palms, the covenant they had made was immediately visible to the person facing them. In this sense, the scar served much like a wedding ring as a sign of marriage.

This brings us to an interesting expression: cutting a covenant.

Cutting a Covenant

A particularly interesting detail that often remains hidden from those of us reading Bible translations is the way making a covenant was—and still is—expressed in Hebrew language, one of the original languages of the Bible.

In Finnish Bible translations, as well as very widely in translations into other languages, the expression used is simply “make” a covenant. Here are a few examples:

Psalm 89:4, NIV “... I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant..."

Genesis 26:27-28, NIV Isaac asked them, “Why have you come to me, since you were hostile to me and sent me away?” 28They answered, “We saw clearly that the Lord was with you; so we said, ‘There ought to be a sworn agreement between us’—between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you...

The Hebrew text of the Bible specifically uses the expression cut a covenant almost every time it speaks of “making” or “entering into” a covenant. Why?

The Ritual of Cutting a Covenant

The reason for the expression “cutting a covenant” is very simple and is rooted in the ritual practiced at that time. Its deeper meaning points to God’s eternal covenant, which has been given to us in Jesus. A covenant always required blood; Jesus shed His blood willingly and, above all, without requiring anything in return.

Through His death, Jesus wanted to redeem for us access to “heaven” and to the Father without placing actual conditions on us as the other party to the covenant. The only thing expected of us—you and me—is to humble ourselves before Jesus and choose to follow Him with our lives. In other words, to “give our lives to Him.”

In Old Testament times as well, covenant, repentance for sins, and forgiveness required a blood sacrifice, through which atonement took effect. Under the so-called old covenant, animals were offered as sacrifices. In the new covenant, Jesus fulfilled everything on the cross, and no further sacrifice is needed.

The parties to a covenant would cut an animal—or animals—in two and place the halves opposite each other so that a kind of passage or path was formed between them. They would then walk back and forth along this passage, loudly declaring the meaning of the covenant, its terms, and the consequences, for example, of breaking it.

The animal that had been cut in two—or several animals, if more than one was used—also conveyed the message: “If I break this covenant, may the same thing happen to me as to this animal!” This ritual applied to both parties.

In the next post, we will take a closer look specifically at the covenant made with Abram, described in Genesis 15. It contains these very elements in a fascinating way!