THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
which always a most solemn method of ratifying a covenant; note how its sacredness is imphed in Ps. 1. 5. An elaborate symbolism in the development of this rite is shown in the custom of cutting the animal in pieces, between which, when laid out, the parties solemnly passed (Gen. xv.; cf. Jer. xxxiv. 18, 19). This ceremony is supposed by many to explain the word beriih as being something " cut," but its obvious secondary character makes the hypothesis improbable. In another main direction the primary notion of sharing a common feeling or life is symbolized by the partaking of common food — the most convenient and frequent of all forms of covenant-making, from the " covenant of salt " to a solemn sacramental meal (see Comparative Religion, VI., 1, d, § 1). Both of these comprehensive types are also present in the covenant made between God and man, since in every sacrifice the blood or life of the victim was presented to God, as also at every meal a portion of the animal or vegetable partaken of was also dedicated to him. Both forms are exemplified in their deepest significance in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
" Religion " means literally the bond that unites man to God, and this is precisely the Biblical cciiception of religion which is constantly represented as the observance of a covenant with Yahweh.
The dedication of the nation to the 4. Religion service of God at Sinai is figured thus : as a " that thou shouldst enter into the Covenant, covenant of Yahweh thy God, and
into his oath which Yahweh thy God makethwith thee this day " (Deut. xxix. 12; cf. Jer. ii. 2, 6, xxxi. 31). To be estranged from God and his service is to " forsake " or " forget " or " break " or " profane " or " transgress " the covenant (Gen. xvii. 14; Deut. iv. 23, 31, xxix. 25, xxxi. 20; Mai. ii. 10; Hos. viii. 1). Similar is the conception of God's own fidelity to the covenant which he has imposed (Judges ii. 1; Deut. xxxi. 16; Ps. Ixxxix. 34; cf. Jer. xxxiii. 20-21). Fulfilling the duties of practical life as well as the obligation of worship is called " keeping the covenant " (Ps. ciii. 18; Isa. Ivi. 4).
The provisions and sanctions of the covenant are contained or summarized in the " laws " which were at various times promulgated in Israel. This was necessarily so for tvfh reasons. On the one hand, a covenant is not merely a theoretical conception, but is concretely an actual
5. Pro- engagement made upon explicit convisions and ditioBs; and these conditions as die- Sanctions, tated by Yahweh were the obligations or rules of his service, which answer to the abstract term " covenant " as the concrete commandments or statutes answer to the abstract torah or " Law." On the other hand, conversely, " the covenant was the only form in which a law could be fashioned and sanctioned in Israel " (Smend). Hence the earliest legislation (Ex. xxi.-
xxiii. ) is called " the book of the covenant " (Ex.
xxiv. 7) and the ten commandments of Ex. xxxiv. are called " the words of the covenant, the ten words " (Ex. xxxiv. 28). It is not certain that this codification and its comments were comi)leted before the reign of Manasseh; but the idea had lonj;
been familiar, and in the Jehovistic and Elohistic writings of the ninth and eighth centuries b.c. a covenant between God and the fathers (Gen. xv. 18; cf. xxiv. 7, from J) is so taken for granted that its extension to Moses and Israel in the law of Sinai is the natural sequel.
It is through the Deuteronomistic writers that this conception of the covenant by law and precept has obtained widest currency. Although the word itself occurs only once (xvii. 2) in the legislation proper of Deuteronomy (chaps, xii.-xxvi.), it is found more often in the book as a whole than in any other of the Old Testament writings. Next in
frequency of use are the prophecy of 6. Prophetic Jeremiah, whom one might venture to Develop- call a mediator of the Old Covenant, ment of the and in the Psalms, where its hold on Conception, the thought and life of the later Israel
receives practical illustration. In Deuteronomy not only are the " ten words " called " covenant," but they are said to have been written on two tablets of stone and placed in an ark (v. 2, ix. 9 sqq., x. 1 sqq.; cf. Ex. xxxii. 15-16, xxxiv. 1, probably influenced by D). Thus the covenant was incorporated into the religious life of Israel as centered in the Temple. It is in Jeremiah and his pupil Ezekiel that the prophetic conception of bcrith attains its consummation. It is still a matter of dispute whether Jeremiah was the author of the great prophecy ch. xxxi. 31-34. But all will admit that it is written in his spirit and that " the new heart " is a mere adaptation of his preaching (cf. xiii. 23, xvii. 9-10) about the essential moral bent of the human soul. In his most profound words exists in any case the germ of the " new covenant." Ezekiel, who is less set on the fundamental importance of righteousness or morality, develops on the other hand the idea of the covenant as a union between Yahweh and his people on the metaphorical basis of the marriage relation. Thus he completes and reenforces Hosea's germinal conception of the marriage-bond as a symbol of the love and fidelity which Israel owed to Yahweh as contrasted with the Baals, which the earlier prophet had not associated with the national covenant between Yahweh and Israel.
By the second Isaiah the covenant was projected from the sphere of preaching into the realm of prediction (e.g., Isa. xlii. 6, xlix. 8, Iv. 4). In the course of the prophetic history the primary conception of the covenant as a body of precepts had gradually given way to its interpretation as a living bond of union between Yahweh and 7. Later his people and a guaranty of his faith- Phases of fulness to his guardian trust. Hence the Con- the restoration of the kingdom founded caption, by David comes to be an animating principle of religious patriotism in the closing years of the exile and the inspiration of the builders of Jerusalem during the many weary years that followed the return under Cyrus, the Messiah of Yahweh (cf. Hagg. ii. 5). Next to the practical reflections of the Psalms the latest ^^ritings on the covenant arc those of the priestly narratives, which describe in detail the earliest covenants: that with Noah (Gen. ix. 9-17; cf. Isa. liv. 9) replaced by