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Israel and Her Covenants

To understand the prophetic passages of the Bible and have a clearer picture of Israel’s future and our future, we must have a good understanding of God’s covenant promises with the people of Israel.  The word covenant might seem like an archaic term, but we still use covenants today. You probably know a covenant as a contract, will, or treaty.  Simply put, a covenant is a promise between two or more parties to do or not to do something. For example, you might enter into a contract with someone to buy your house or with a bank to loan you money to buy a car. These are “covenants” in the strictest sense. However, biblical covenants between God and man are much more personal than business contracts: they are motivated by love and have a covenant maker that, by His nature, cannot break His covenant! `

In biblical times, covenants were typical. They were often accompanied by an oath, a sign, or a ceremony. It is not surprising that throughout the Bible, God enters into covenants with people and nations. Each of His covenants focuses on one purpose: to provide salvation to the world.  

In The Promised Messiah, we discussed the first covenant God made with man, the Adamic Covenant. God created man and woman to rule and reign over the earth on one condition: they were not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man broke his side of the covenant, and as a result, a curse fell over the entire earth.  We also briefly talked about Noah and his sons. After God sent a flood to destroy sinful earth, He made a covenant with Noah that He would never again destroy the world with a flood. As a reminder to Noah and his descendants of His promise, God sent a sign, the rainbow. 

There are many other covenants in the Bible; however, here, we will focus on four covenants that structure the relationship between God and the nation of Israel.  : the Abrahamic Covenant, Land Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant.

The Abrahamic Covenant 

After man’s fall in the garden, and the great flood that destroyed the earth and its inhabitants, God continued to work out His plan of redemption and blessing through Abraham and his descendants. The promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 and the path to their fulfillment weave their way through the Bible all the way to the book of Revelation.  

God called Abraham, a descendant of Noah’s son Shem, into covenant with Him. He promised Abraham three things: land, seed, and blessing. The Abrahamic Covenant was personal to Abraham, but it also had national and universal characteristics.  

Each promise of the Abrahamic Covenant is  further developed through sub covenants; the “land” promise through the Land Covenant; the “seed” promise through the Davidic Covenant; and the “blessing” promise through the New Covenant. The Abrahamic Covenant and its sub covenants are unconditional, eternal, and literal. 

The first promise of the Abrahamic Covenant is the promise of land. The promised land was called the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:5). The land of Canaan is now modern-day Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and the southern parts of Syria and Lebanon.   

The second promise of the Abrahamic Covenant is the promise of seed. God promised Abraham that he would make him into a great nation (Genesis 12:2) and his descendants (seed) would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5). Later, God expanded the Covenant, promising Abraham would become the father of many nations, and kings would come from him (Genesis 17:2-6).  

The third promise of the Covenant is the promise of blessing. God promised to bless Abraham and the families of the earth through him (Genesis 12:2-3). He also promised that Abraham’s seed would be blessed and possess its’ enemies’ gates (Genesis 22:17).  

Looking at all these promises, we can see that some are personal promises to Abraham, some are national promises to Israel, and others are universal promises to all of us.  

Personal Promises to Abraham 

Included in Abraham’s personal promises are i. he would be the father of many nations, ii. God would bless him and make his name great, and iii. he would be a blessing to others. Not only is Abraham the patriarch of Israel, but he is also the patriarch of the Ishmaelites, and Edomites, and many other nations. Additionally, God blessed Abraham materially: He was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold (Genesis 13:1-2). God also blessed him spiritually: “He believed in the Lord, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). Finally, God made Abraham’s name great, as evidenced by the mention of his name 294 times in the Bible and the fact that we are still talking about him thousands of years later. 

National Promises to Israel 

Israel is the great nation that God promised Abraham. He passed the promises of land, seed, and blessing from Abraham down to Israel’s tribes. Israel is the rightful possessor of the promised land, and Israel ultimately will possess all of the promised land for eternity (Genesis 15:18-21 Genesis 17:8). God is Israel’s God, and through God, Israel has received blessings and is a blessing to the world. Israel will have victory over its enemies (Genesis 22:17).   

Universal Promises to the World 

The Abrahamic blessing is universal because, through Abraham’s seed, Jesus Christ, all the earth’s families are blessed (Genesis 12:3) (Galatians 3:16).  

Land Covenant 

After Moses’ death and before Israel entered the promised land, God renewed and expanded on the Abrahamic Covenant’s land promise. God made a new covenant with Israel (Deuteronomy 30:1-10) that will be fulfilled in the future millennial kingdom. In this Land Covenant, God promises to gather the scattered Israelites from all over the world and bring them back to the promised land. There he will restore their hearts to himself.  

Through the prophets, Jeremiah, Joel, Amos, and Micah, God confirms that this new and expanded Land Covenant is eternal. Jeremiah says that Jerusalem will be rebuilt and will not be plucked up or overthrown, anymore,  forever (Jeremiah 31:38-40). Then Joel tells us that Judah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem for all generations (Joel 3:17-21). Next, Amos communicates to us that God will plant Israel on their land, and they will never again be uprooted (Amos 9:14-15). Finally, Micah tells us that the Lord will reign over Israel in Mt. Zion forever (Micah 4:6-7).  

Davidic Covenant 

The Davidic Covenant confirms the Abrahamic Covenant and narrows the seed promise to focus on one family, the family of David.  God promised David that from him would come a future kingdom which would one day be ruled by his Son forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16). The eternal nature of this expanded seed promise is further developed in Psalm 89: 3-4, where God says, “I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant, I will establish your seed forever and build up your throne to all generations.”  Also, Isaiah wrote about a future and final King who will reign over Jacob’s descendants from David’s throne (Isaiah 9:6-7).  

New Covenant 

In Jeremiah 31:31-33, God announces a New Covenant that expands on the Abrahamic Covenant blessing aspect.  This covenant sets out how God’s people will enjoy His blessings in the future millennial kingdom following the great tribulation (Jeremiah 30:7).  

Three Characteristics of Abrahamic Covenant and its Subcovenants 

Unconditional 

Before God would enter the Covenant with Abraham, he had to leave his home when God called him and go to the place where he would receive his inheritance (Genesis 12:1,  Hebrews 11:8). Once Abraham acted in faith and obedience, God unconditionally entered into a covenant with him.

We see the unconditional nature of God’s promise of land in Genesis 15:8-21 when God, through a ceremony, passed through animals that Abraham had cut in two. Usually, in this particular ceremony, two people passed through the animal pieces as a sign of their promises to each other. However, because Abraham was in a deep sleep, God passed through the parts alone, signifying Abraham had to do nothing to fulfill the Covenant.  

In Genesis 17, God appeared to Abraham, telling him that as a sign of the covenant, not as a condition, all his male descendants must be circumcised. God made it clear that individuals who were not circumcised would forfeit the blessings of the covenant. However, God’s covenant with the nation of Israel remains unbroken. This principle of Israel losing immediate blessings because of sin and disobedience has played out repeatedly throughout history.  Nonetheless, Israel’s unfaithfulness does not mean that God has withdrawn His covenant promises to the nation.  God alone will fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant. 

And finally, after God tested Abraham’s faithfulness by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac, God confirmed His land, seed, and blessing promises to Abraham (Genesis 22:15-18). God proved His covenant with an oath, an oath that he could only make based on Himself since no one is greater than God. Hebrews 6:13-17 tells us that He did this to “show the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath.”   

Eternal 

In Genesis 17:713, and 19, God refers to His Covenant with Abraham as eternal. Its eternal nature is once again confirmed in 1 Chronicles 16:17, and the Psalmist states in Psalm 105:8-10 that God “has remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac. Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel an everlasting covenant.” 

Literal 

We should take the Promises of the Abrahamic Covenant as literal. The land that God promised to the nation of Israel was real land with real boundaries (Genesis 15:18). God made the covenant with real people: He passed the covenant promises to Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5) and then to Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15Genesis 35:9-13). Blessings that God promised have been literally fulfilled. As God promised, Abraham is the father of many nations. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s descendants became the great nation of Israel. Kings came from Abraham, and the world has been blessed through his seed. Since these aspects of God’s promises have been literally fulfilled, we should expect that all of His promises, including those millennial promises of the Land Covenant, Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant, should also be literally fulfilled! 

Not only do the Abrahamic, Land, Davidic, and New Covenant structure the relationship between God and Israel, but they also help us grow in our understanding of God’s very nature. God is a God of covenant. He is a promise-keeping God.  What He says He is going to do, He does, and He does literally! We see this universal truth through His interactions with Israel. Because we belong to Christ, then we are Abraham’s descendants and heirs according to the promises made to him (Galatians 3:29). All God’s promises are yes and amen in Jesus!

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ABOUT AUTHOR

Stephanie Solberg

I am a truth seeker by nature. My passion is studying God's Word and sharing His Truth with others.

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