The Covenant With Abraham: The Keystone of Biblical Architecture

By Eugene H. Merrill, Ph.D.

[Distinguished Professor of Old Testament, Dallas Theological Seminary; Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Interpretation; Southern Baptist Theological Seminary]

Certain times and texts in the unfolding revelation of God in the Bible are so crucial to its fundamental, central message that they constitute turning points that launch that message into trajectories it would otherwise not have traversed. This is eminently true of the Abrahamic Covenant and its significance to the salvific purposes of God for Israel and the church. How one understands the nature and function of this covenant will largely determine one’s overall theology and most particularly his eschatology.

The Canonical Setting Of The Abrahamic Covenant

The importance of the Abrahamic Covenant is seen in the fact that it is the topic first introduced in the patriarchal narratives that immediately succeed the so-called “primeval history” (Gen 1—11).[1] After a brief introduction to Abram as a son of Terah with whom he had left Ur for Haran (11:27–32), the author hastened to arrive at Abram’s call to leave his land and family in order to fulfill some great destiny God had for him. In the span of only three verses (12:1–3) the essentials of God’s call are delineated and the foundation is laid for a covenant that will actualize God’s promises to the patriarch.

The call comes none too soon for the primeval history is essentially the dismal record of the Fall (3), the Flood (6—9), and the attempt by mankind at Babel to supplant God and to rule in His stead (11:1–9). Only the genealogy between Shem and Abram offers hope of a better age to come for it links the Noahic Covenant (9:1–17) with the Abrahamic (12:1–3; 15:1–21; 17:1–21), the covenant in the former case made with all mankind and in the latter with a single man who would sire a nation of salvific intermediaries. The placement of that covenant at precisely this point communicates not only Israel’s assessment of its significance but, more important, that of the ultimate Author who inspired and communicated the texts that enshrine it.

The Historical Setting Of The Abrahamic Covenant

According to the best reading of biblical chronology, Abraham was born in 2166 BC and the covenant followed some hundred years later.[2] That period marked a seismic shift in the affairs of the great nations of the ancient Near Eastern world, one comparable to the times of the incarnation, ministry, and redemptive work of Jesus Christ (Gal 4:4–5).[3] The Sumerians had recovered from their oppression by barbarians from the eastern mountains, the Egyptians were emerging from the dark ages of the First Intermediate Period, and the Amorites and other semi-nomadic peoples were penetrating all parts of the eastern Mediterranean world, both enriching and disturbing the status quo. Canaan was at the crossroads of the international movement of armies and caravans and was therefore a breeding ground for whatever ideas were also being introduced. No better time and place could be imagined in the ancient world for God to advance the radical idea of world redemption.

The Theological Setting Of The Abrahamic Covenant

If the covenant of Genesis 6:18 (“I will establish My covenant with you”) refers to the creation mandate of Genesis 1:26–28 (and there is good reason to believe so), then the one with Noah is the second in the sequence of covenants.[4] The creation mandate explains why mankind was created and outlines his responsibilities as the image of God: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it” (Gen 1:28, HCSB). However, human sin (and the Fall precipitated by it) short-circuited that process almost before it began, so another covenant (one with Noah) had to be implemented in the post-flood world. That covenant was modeled after the first in many respects but because of the altered conditions of creation the covenant could be accomplished only partially and imperfectly. The problem was no longer just one of accomplishing the dominion mandate but how to do it given man’s miserable state.

The answer lay in still a third covenant arrangement, one that provided a means of reconciliation of the world to the Creator so that mankind as a whole could recover its status as the unimpaired image of God and its role of ruling over all things under His sovereignty. The instrument that was fashioned to accomplish this—the so-called Abrahamic Covenant—was made this time not with the collective world of humankind but with one man. However, that man would generate a seed that eventually would issue in a nation and then, ironically, once more in a Man, this time perfect who could at last achieve the accomplishment of God’s creation objectives.

The covenant seed, first Isaac and then Jacob, found national expression in Israel and royal expression in David and his descendants. With both of these the Lord also made covenants, the Mosaic and Davidic respectively. The Mosaic Covenant was established at Mount Sinai just after the exodus from Egypt and was expanded and reaffirmed, as the book of Deuteronomy in Moab, just prior to the conquest. It was not of the type of the Abrahamic, however, but was a covenant of service, one labeled by modern scholarship as a “suzerain-vassal” treaty.[5] It was designed not to make Israel the people of God but to call Israel as a people to serve God as witness-bearers to His plan of redemption articulated in the Abrahamic Covenant.

The Davidic Covenant was both a subset of the Mosaic and an extension of the Abrahamic. It was created to provide monarchic leadership of the nation Israel and to fulfill the Abrahamic promise of kings to come who would govern first God’s own people and then all the nations of the world.[6] That latter aspect would find realization in eschatological times in Jesus Christ, Son of David, through the instrument of the New Covenant.

This brief survey of the various Old Testament covenants suggests how foundational and central the Abrahamic Covenant is to the whole apparatus of God’s dealings with a fallen world. It will now be helpful to examine that covenant in detail and to see more precisely how it relates to all those that follow.

The Nature And Substance Of The Abrahamic Covenant

A rather general consensus maintains that Genesis 12:1–3 is not part of the Abrahamic Covenant per se but is a brief narrative in which Abram was called to make a decision as to whether or not he will accept God’s offer to make him the recipient and transmitter of covenant promises. He was comfortably settled in Haran, having left his birthplace Ur many years earlier (Gen 11:31). Following his father’s death Abram heard the heavenly call—expressed in strongly imperative terms (lek-lěkâ)—to get out of his country and away from his extended family and to go to a land the Lord would show him. There the Lord would add to the promise of a land another one—that Abram would be progenitor of a nation and that he would be a means of blessing “all the clans of the earth” (12:2–3).

Nothing in the passage suggests that Abram had to meet any conditions whatsoever in order to receive the covenant except to leave his land and family.[7] This he did by faith, as the author of Hebrews emphasizes (Heb 11:8–10). This leads to a consideration of the nature of the Abrahamic Covenant in a technical sense, an avenue of investigation that has been illuminated by the discovery of secular texts of a similar kind, especially those described as “royal grants.”[8] In these texts that are roughly contemporary with the period of Abram, great kings offered to certain of their subjects blessings and benefits requiring no reciprocal action whatsoever in order for them to take effect. The king had merely seen some trait or deed of heroism or loyalty on the part of the vassal and he wished to reward him accordingly. The parallels between these documents and the Abrahamic Covenant are patently obvious. The Lord in His sovereign wisdom and grace had seen in Abram a spirit of faith and loyalty and thus called him to a place where He could bestow on him the blessing of an unconditional grant. All Abram had to do was to assent to it and to move to the land where the blessings of the covenant could become operative. However, as will be evident, though the covenant itself was an inalienable grant, ongoing blessings attached to it demanded a life of obedience and continuing commitment.

The remaining principal covenant texts and allusions in Genesis are 13:14–18; 15:1–21; 17:1–21; 22:9–19; 26:1–5, 23–25; 27:27–29; 28:3–4, 13-17; 35:9–15; 46:2–4; and, 49:10. Space constraints preclude careful exegesis of any of these but it is important to attempt at least to see how they amplify the three main constituents of the promises to Abram: land, people, and blessing.

After Abram had parted from Lot because of squabbles over pasture lands, the Lord showed him all the land in all directions from where he stood and promised, “I will give you and your offspring all the land that you see. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth” (Gen 13:15–16). He then commanded him to walk throughout the land, asserting thereby his dominion over it all.[9] Wherever Abram placed his foot, that land would be his.

The issue in Genesis 15 primarily concerns the lack of a son through whom Abram could find covenant succession. The Lord therefore promised Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven (15:5). In response, “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness” (15:6). Again, no effort or meritorious deed was prerequisite to this grant but only acquiescence. The verb “believed” can be literally rendered “he put his trust in,” an attitude so transparently authentic that the Lord regarded Abram’s faith tantamount to righteousness, a singularly New Testament concept (cf. Rom 4:22–24).[10] At the end of the passage the Lord once more confirmed the land promise as well: “I give this land to your offspring, from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River” (Gen 15:18).

Genesis 17 raises one more the dilemma of Abram’s childlessness, a problem all the more acute since the patriarch was now ninety-nine years old. The Lord commanded him to “Live in My presence and be devout. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you greatly” (vv. 1–2). The grammatical construction allows an inferred conditionality here (“[If] you live in my presence and are devout . . . I will establish”) but the plain text does not state it thus. Indeed, the command and the promise appear to be unrelated except in the sense that Abram, as the servant of the Lord, was expected to follow an obedient lifestyle by virtue of that relationship.[11]

The promise of offspring in its narrowest sense is that Sarai (now Sarah) would bear a son, thus fulfilling the pledge of a seed in the immediate future (17:15–16, 19). However, that single seed would also be the progenitor of nations and kings (17:4–6, 16). Israel certainly was in mind but the plural also hints of nations beyond Israel, that is, the Gentile nations of the New Covenant. This even prompts a name change, for the patriarch will no longer be Abram (“exalted father”) but Abraham (“father of a multitude”) (17:5). Moreover, the covenant will be everlasting, putting to rest the idea that it was exhausted with the end of the Old Testament or with the destruction of Herod’s temple in AD 70. Three times the covenant is called everlasting (17:7, 13, 19; cf. Ps 105:9–10) and once the land of Canaan as Abraham’s possession is so described (17:8). Therefore, seed and land are juxtaposed and both are said to be without ending.

The reference to “kings [who will] come from you” (17:6; cf. v. 16) is of more than passing interest. The earliest of the covenants had to do with human dominion (1:28; 9:1–2) and the Abrahamic Covenant develops this theme by narrowing it historically to the descendants of Abraham, that is, to the kings of Israel in succession to David, the first and greatest of the line until its culmination in Christ, the Son of David. Kingship, then, was not inimical to the covenant purposes of God. Indeed, it was the plan of God all along but only at the proper time and in the proper person (1 Sam 8:6–9; 13:14; 16:13–14).

Following Abraham’s testing at Mount Moriah regarding the sacrifice of his covenant son Isaac, the Lord appears to have guaranteed the continuation of the covenant because of Abraham’s obedience. “Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son,” He said, “I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore. Your offspring will possess the gates of their enemies. And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because you have obeyed My command” (Gen 22:16–18). The passage begins and ends with an adverbial conjunction, thus strengthening the causal idea.

However, the covenant itself is not thereby at risk but only its blessings. Abraham and his descendants would continue no matter what, but the great promises of innumerable offspring, dominion over the nations, and the means of blessing the world would have been jeopardized had Abraham failed this almost incomprehensible test. R. W. L. Moberly harmonized the unconditionality of the covenant itself with the need for Abraham’s obedience as a precondition to its blessings in the following manner: “A promise which was previously grounded solely in the will and purposes of Yahweh is transformed so that it is grounded both in the will of Yahweh and in the obedience of Abraham.”[12] This is analogous to the idea that salvation is a gift of God by grace through faith and yet the relationship established in this manner demands subsequent and authenticating obedience if it is to achieve its highest potential. After Abraham’s death, the covenant was by no means annulled but in fact was reaffirmed to his son Isaac (26:1–5, 23–25; cf. 17:19; 21:12; 25:11). Once more all three elements are there—land, seed, and a means of blessing. And once more Abraham’s obedience is stressed as essential to the continuation of the blessing. The Lord promised Isaac that all the terms of the covenant would come to fruition “because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My mandate, My commands, My statutes, and My instructions” (26:5). The same connection between the irrefragable promises of God and human responsibility is reiterated in the pledge of the Lord, “I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of My servant Abraham” (26:4). That is, Abraham’s obedience not only ensured the blessings of the covenant to him personally but it became the basis upon which the blessings would rest upon his descendants in the ages to come.

The same idea is repeated with respect to the Davidic Covenant. For example, Solomon was threatened with the loss of the kingdom but the Lord said to him, “I will not do it during your lifetime because of your father David; I will tear it out of your son’s hand. Yet I will not tear the entire kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son because of David and because of Jerusalem that I chose” (1 Kgs 11:12–13; cf. 15:4; 2 Kgs 8:19; 19:34; 20:6; Ps 132:10; Isa 37:35).

The Abrahamic Covenant was bequeathed to Jacob in a gradually unfolding manner. First his father Isaac blessed him with the prayer, “May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you,” followed by the promise, “Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed” (Gen 27:29). Later Isaac pleaded, “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you”—a clear reminiscence of the ancient creation mandate—and may you “possess the land where you live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham” (28:3–4). The land promise was reiterated in even stronger terms in Jacob’s vision of the heavenly staircase: “I will give you and your offspring the land that you are sleeping on. Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth . . . and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring” (28:13–14). This encapsulates all the principal elements of the Abrahamic Covenant.

Upon Jacob’s return from Paddan Aram the Lord changed his name to Israel and commanded him to “Be fruitful and multiply,” promising him that “a nation, indeed, an assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will descend from you. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you. And I will give the land to your descendants after you” (35:11–12). The reference to kings provides an obvious connection to the Davidic Covenant yet to be revealed.

This survey of references to the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis alone secures beyond any doubt the fact that the basis for all subsequent promises concerning land, a people, and the blessing of the nations rests squarely upon it. The covenants to follow are either subsidiary to it or elaborate upon it. The reader will be directed now for at least a brief glimpse of each of these.

The Relationship Between The Abrahamic And Mosaic Covenants

The Mosaic Covenant followed very closely after the miraculous deliverance of Israel—the seed of Abraham—from Egyptian bondage. Its connection to the Abrahamic Covenant is evident from the very beginning of the Exodus narrative. First, the people “were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous” (Exod 1:7). This collocation of terms most pointedly suggests a fulfillment of the promise to Abraham concerning his abundant offspring. Then came oppression because of Israel’s burgeoning population, oppression so severe that God “heard [Israel’s] groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (2:24). This set in motion God’s intention to deliver Israel and return them to that “good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (3:8; cf. vv. 15–17). Reference to the land and to the named inhabitants calls to mind Genesis 15:18–21, one of the great Abrahamic covenant texts.

Even more telling is the explicit connection between the patriarchs and the Mosaic Covenant in Exodus 6:2–5. Alluding to the fathers the Lord told Moses, “I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan . . . and I have remembered My covenant.” Then follows the promise of exodus deliverance (vv. 6–8). The Abrahamic Covenant would be so foundational to the Mosaic that when Israel in the future proved unfaithful and lapsed into indifference or even overt idolatry the promises to Abraham would ensure Israel’s repentance and restoration (Lev 26:40–45; cf. Exod 32:13; Deut 9:27–29; 2 Kgs 13:22–23). Mark Rooker correctly observed, “God will remember the Abrahamic promises even though Israel has not obeyed the stipulations of the Mosaic Law.”[13]

The question yet remains: How does the Mosaic Covenant relate to the Abrahamic? The answer lies, first of all, in the identification of the Mosaic Covenant as one formally separate and distinct from the Abrahamic. The latter has been labeled an unconditional “Royal Grant” on the basis of similar ancient Near Eastern historical and literary models. The Mosaic, however, is of a conditional type known as a “Suzerain-Vassal” treaty text. It is analogous to well-known examples from Hittite sources of the Late Bronze Age.[14] Such treaties were initiated by so-called “great kings” with less powerful ones whom they had conquered or had otherwise brought within their ambit of control. Usually in these secular contexts such arrangements were involuntary and disloyalty to the “great king” wrought serious consequences.[15]

In the case of the Lord and Israel, the covenant was offered by the Lord and accepted willingly by Israel (Exod 19:5–6, 8). Moreover, it was not a covenant whereby Israel became the people of the Lord. They were already His people by virtue of their descent from Abraham, a point made explicitly even before the giving of the covenant at Sinai. The Lord had said to Moses, “I have observed the misery of My people in Egypt” (3:7) and He informed him, “I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt” (v. 10). Even more explicitly, the Lord made the remarkable declaration, “Israel is My firstborn son” and therefore Moses must instruct Pharaoh, “Let My son go so that he may worship Me” (4:22–23; cf. Isa 63:16; 64:8; Hos 11:1).

If the Mosaic Covenant is not a Royal Grant but a Suzerain-Vassal treaty, what does that mean vis-à-vis the Abrahamic Covenant? The answer lies in both its form and function. As already noted, from a formal standpoint it is of the type by which a superior offered certain benefits and advantages to an underling who in turn promised loyal service and other reciprocations. Functionally—and specifically with reference to the Mosaic Covenant—it stated clearly the role the vassal must function under its terms. In the context of the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic was designed to grant to Israel, the seed of Abraham, the privilege and responsibility of being the particular means by which that seed could be the means of blessing all the nations. That is, Israel, the son of God, was being invited to serve Him by presenting to the world the message of reconciliation embodied in the Abrahamic Covenant.[16] The details of its outworking lead now to a consideration of the Davidic and New Covenants.

The Relationship Between The Abrahamic And Davidic Covenants

The Abrahamic Covenant speaks generally of kings who would descend from Abraham, paving the way for human monarchy (Gen 17:6, 16). More particularly, in Jacob’s blessing of the tribes he prophesied that “the scepter will not depart from Judah, or the staff from between his feet, until He whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to Him” (49:10; cf. Numb 24:17). The kings of promise would become a single, ideal king and the source would be not only Israel but also Judah specifically. The Deuteronomic version of the Mosaic Covenant was preparation for kings to come (Deut 17:14–20) and Israel’s subsequent history reveals a yearning to have a king like all the other nations (Judg 8:22–23; 9:6; 17:6; 18:1; 21:25; 1 Sam 8:5). At last in God’s own time, He selected David, a Judahite, a man described as “a man according to His heart,” that is, the man of His sovereign choice (1 Sam 13:14).[17] Therefore, the royal seed promised to Abraham made his historical appearance.

The relationship between the Davidic and Abrahamic Covenants is complicated by the fact that by form the two are generally construed as royal grants but by function the Davidic not only fulfills the promise of human monarchy given to Abraham but also does so within the framework of the Mosaic Covenant. That is, David and his descendants were offspring of Abraham who were given royal status but that status was historically exercised within and over the people Israel before becoming universalized in Jesus Christ. Brief attention to its unfolding will make this clear.

The text that makes the connection most explicitly is Jeremiah 33:25–26: “This is what the Lord says: If I do not keep My covenant with the day and with the night and fail to establish the fixed order of heaven and earth, then I might also reject the seed of Jacob and of My servant David— not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Here the Lord vowed to maintain the Davidic Covenant as an instrument whereby David’s dynasty will rule over Israel (“the seed of Jacob”), the special offspring of Abraham.[18]

The Davidic Covenant is first articulated in 2 Samuel 7 (cf. 1 Chron 17) where the Lord promised David that He will build for him an everlasting house (i.e., dynasty). He will magnify his name (v. 9), secure the land of Israel for his people (v. 10), and guarantee the everlasting duration of the Davidic kingship in a single occupant of the throne (vv. 12–16). This is the Son of David already hinted at in Genesis 49:10 and elaborated upon in Psalms 2, 72, and 110. Consequently, the dynasty of David the Israelite will issue in a single ruler who, as the descendant of Abraham, will have dominion not only over Israel but also over all of God’s creation.

The Relationship Between The Abrahamic Covenant And The “New” (New) Covenants

The term “New Testament” is a somewhat misleading way of describing the “New Covenant,” a concept referred to as such a number of times in the New Testament (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6; Heb 8:8, 13; 9:15; 12:24). It is no doubt reminiscent of the only occurrence of the term in the Old Testament, namely, Jeremiah 31:31. In this passage the Lord promised that He would “make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (emphasis added). It will be unlike the Mosaic, not because it will differ in essence and purpose, but because it will become internalized, written on the heart rather than on stone tablets (vv. 32–33). This will guarantee an ability to keep it and the universality of its acceptance by the whole community (v. 34). Ezekiel, referring to the same covenant, spoke of Israel’s “new heart” and “new spirit” the Lord would give them so they can walk in perfect compliance with His statutes and ordinances (Ezek 36:26–27). As a result, the nations will be impressed to know that He is the Lord (v. 23) and that He has kept His ancient covenant promises to His people (v. 36).

Without adequate opportunity here to argue the case in detail, the author’s proposes that the ”New” Covenant of Jeremiah is not precisely the same as the New Covenant of most New Testament texts but that nonetheless both flow from the Abrahamic Covenant. Jeremiah’s covenant is made explicitly with a renewed, eschatological Israel and Judah (cf. Jer 31:1, 17, 23, 27, 31) whereas the New Covenant of the New Testament is universalized to include not only Israel but also all the nations who turn to the Lord in repentance and faith.[19]

The New Covenant is mentioned first in Luke 22:20 where Jesus spoke of the cup of “the new covenant established by My blood.” Paul, in the context of the church, cited the Luke passage thus broadening “New” Covenant to a dimension larger than Jeremiah’s scope (1 Cor 11:25).[20] He enlarged on this idea further in 2 Corinthians where he referred to the stone tablets of the Mosaic Covenant being inherently inferior to the work of the Spirit in the human heart (3:6–11). However, the Apostle appeared merely to be comparing the modal and effectual differences between law written on stone and law written on the heart (as, indeed, did Jeremiah) without denying the reality of a “New” Covenant with Israel. His lengthy discourse in Romans 9—11 is sufficient to demonstrate his understanding of the permanent nature of God’s covenant relationship with Israel even in the era of the church.

Hebrews 8, however, is the locus classicus on the matter of the respective New Covenants. Indeed, did the author have in mind a single New Covenant or is his presentation open to an interpretation that allows for both? He quoted Jeremiah 31:31–34 to argue that the ministry of Jesus as superior to that of Moses in that Jesus “is the mediator of a better (kreittonos) covenant, which has been legally enacted on better (kreittosin) promises” (v. 6). The basic nuance of the Greek term is “more prominent, higher in rank, preferable,”[21] not necessarily suggesting that the thing being compared is flawed. The statement in verse 7 to the effect that the first covenant was not faultless is immediately qualified by the remark that the fault was with the people who could not keep it (v. 8; cf. Rom 7:7–12). A new covenant must be given in such a manner that people can obey it.

This notion is clearly akin to the unconditionality of the Abrahamic Covenant which did not depend on human initiative but purely on the prevenient grace of God. All that was required for the full enjoyment of its benefits was compliance with its terms. Employing the language of Jeremiah 31, the author of Hebrews proclaimed that the New Covenant in Jesus fulfills both God’s commitment to Israel and to the nations of the earth to whom Israel was to bear witness.[22] Evidence of this lies outside the scope of Hebrews, being found particularly in the Pauline literature (Rom 1:16–17; 3:21–26; 10:1–13; Gal 3:6–9; Eph 3:1–13).

Conclusion

This brief study has attempted to identify the Abrahamic Covenant as the means through which God revealed His plan for the reconciliation of the fallen race to Himself and as the instrument by which this salvific work could be accomplished. This covenant promised that an innumerable seed would occupy a geographic and historical place and become the channel of divine blessing to the whole world. That seed was Israel, the land was Canaan, and the blessing was God’s redemptive grace mediated through a single Seed who sprang from Israel and who will sit on the throne of restored Israel’s monarchy first occupied by David. The failure of Israel to fulfill its servant mandate in history has already been redressed at the Cross by Christ, the Suffering Servant who both died and rose from the dead in order to effect a New Covenant and who will come as King of kings to inaugurate God’s everlasting rule over a perfect recreation (Isa 52:13— 53:12; cf. 42:1–4 18–25; 44:1–5; 49:1–7; 50:4–11; Rev 19:11–16).

Notes

1. Eugene H. Merrill, “The Peoples of the Old Testament according to Genesis 10, ” Bibliotheca Sacra 154 (January—March 1997): 9-10; cf. Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27—50:26 (New American Commentary 1B) (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 84–85.
2. Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 41–43.
3. Amélie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East c. 3000—330 BC (London: Routledge, 1995), 1:56–70, 154–61.
4. W. J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of Old Testament Covenants (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984), 32–33.
5. For its form and historical roots, see Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 283–99.
6. For the complicated relationships among these various covenants, see Eugene H. Merrill, Everlasting Dominion: A Theology of the Old Testament (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 437–40.
7. John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 1:198–199.
8. The basic study is by Moshe Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and Ancient Near East,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 90 (1970): 184-203.
9. The stem of the verb here (Hithpael, hithallēk) suggests walking as indicative of asserting rule. See Eugene H. Merrill, “הלך,” New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, ed. Willem A. VanGemeren (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 1:1032–1035.
10. The root of the verb is ʾāman, meaning in the Hiphil stem (as here) to “put one’s trust in” (cf. Exod 14:31; Numb 14:11; 20:12; Deut 1:32; Jon 3:5). See Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 64.
11. Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 334–35.
12. Cited in Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16—50 (Word Biblical Commentary 2) (Dallas: Word, 1994), 112.
13. Mark F. Rooker, Leviticus (New American Commentary 3A) (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000), 320.
14. See the still important work by Meredith G. Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 27–30.
15. In a treaty between the Hittite king Muršili and Dubbi-Tešub, his vassal, the king warned, “All the words of the treaty and the oath which are written on this tablet— if Dubbi-Tešub [does not keep these] words of the treaty and of the oath, then let these oath gods destroy Dubbi-Tešub together with his head, his wife, his son, his grandson, his house, his city, his land and together with his possessions.” The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger Jr. (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 2:98.
16. Merrill, Everlasting Dominion, 255–58.
17. The phrase “according to [God’s] heart” suggests not that David was selected because his heart was right or that he had any other commendable quality but that God chose him according to His [God’s] act of pure grace. See P. Kyle McCarter Jr., I Samuel (Anchor Bible 8) (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 229.
18. Stephen G. Dempster, “The Servant of the Lord,” in Central Themes in Biblical Theology, eds. Scott J. Hafeman and Paul R. House (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 154.
19. For a succinct and convincing case for the “new things” of the New Covenant and yet its continuity with the covenants of the Old Testament, see Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Toward an Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 231–35.
20. Marshall proposed that Luke was referring to Exodus 24:8 rather than to Jeremiah 31:31 as the Old Testament basis for his new covenant idea. This leaves the Jeremiah text as alluding to a continuation of the covenant made specifically with Israel. I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (New International Greek Testament Commentary) (Exeter, UK: Paternoster, 1978), 806–07.
21. William F. Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., rev. F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 449.
22. As Martens stated, “With that statement [of Jer 31:32] Jeremiah points forward to the Christ event, as the author of Hebrews explains (Heb. 8:6–13). But in giving the promise, Jeremiah also harks back to the beginning of Israel’s story, to the covenant at Sinai.” Elmer A. Martens, God’s Design (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 221.