This is a rough draft of a discussion of the OT class. For some reason, I don’t like writing something and not posting it:

Three major covenants (Noah and God, Abraham and God, Israel and God) have been discussed so far in your reading. How are these covenants different from each other? How have they shaped the biblical texts and the history of ancient Israel?

Noah received the promise of safety and security from destruction by the waters of chaos, but not just him, the animals and birds as well. Further, Noah, unlike Adam, was able to eat of the animals. Murder, either by man or animal, would be a crime and one punishable by a restitution equal only in the death of the offender. What is interesting here is that in the LXX, God seems to imply that instead of the law applying to animals (as we would later see in the Mosaic Law), the animals play a part in holding the murderer accountable. (Genesis 9.5, LXX). But, this covenant was about establishing the Image of God, expressly and God’s duty to humanity. For Abraham, it was about selecting a family and showcasing God’s control of the destiny for that family. With Israel, it was about preserving the purity of the family, redemption, and rescue. Cogan notes the Decalogue as a type of a treaty, which I think is solidified by the commandment against using the name of God ‘in vain’. In this treaty with the God of Heaven’s Armies, Israel is to remain faithful and pure, as a bride, to that God. As the Torah expanded, we see a system of blessings and curses built in for correction and ultimate punishment, and yet, God is never far off from Israel.

In the covenant of Noah, I find much in the notion that our lifeblood will be reckoned (Orthodox Study Bible), which calls to mind the notion of the bloodguilt suffered by David (Psa 15.14) and his life spent repenting for it. Further, there is the notion that God’s wrath is containable with destruction being limited and temporary. It is as if God values humanity, even in the worse of situations. We see this exemplified throughout the Prophets who promise destruction and redemption. In Abraham, we see ideal faith exhibited, even through thoroughly human terms, as a man leaves all that he knows with blind faith, and continues to disobey and fall short of God’s promises. It is odd that a man who could leave his family for a destination unknown simply because one of a hundred gods who claimed to be the God told him to do so could fail so miserably at times and yet, the covenant with Abraham is the one which is sought throughout the Tanakh and into the New Testament. It is the covenant of God based in God’s foreknowledge of human weakness requiring only faith. However, this covenant is possibly what held together Israel, North and South, Pharisee and Sadducee, and kept, for a lack of a better cliché, hope alive. While the covenant between Israel and God expressed through the Law established ritual purity and a system for cleansing of sins, it is Abraham’s hope which the Psalmist uses to be remembered. It is, however, the overall (classical) myth of the Covenant descending from Mt. Horeb which forged Israel’s national identity as one beholden to God as a tribal nation. Regardless of Leviticus or other purity Codes, this simple law of God first, and not just any God, but the national God of Israel would give rise to the ethical monotheism which would shape the entire text of Scriptures, and indeed, much of our notion of civilization.

The descending of the Covenant at Sinai, in which all the world shook, stopped and bowed to that mountain in the desert, is mimicked at Pentecost and seen in the distant memory of Scripture as the Golden Age of the Covenant. Even though Israel had been caught with a Golden Calf, God still chose Israel as His paramour. We see this covenant return to important as Israel is destroyed, wracked because of the guilt of sin. The Prophets claim it and name it as God’s boundary marker. A King ‘finds’ it and calls for a national revival, albeit too late. A Scribe and a Cup-bearer used it to cleanse Israel of all impurity, even racial, contrary to the story of Ruth. It shapes all of Israel because it creates a foundation which arises from Abraham, for unity, not only among the tribes of Israel, but so too Israel and God, no matter the Diaspora Israel faced. It created a nation out of strangers, foreigners, and illegal immigrants and served to hold together the Jewish people as the People of the One True God, even in the darkest days of exile, pogrom, and holocaust.