covenant

—covenantal /kuv'euh nan"tl/, adj.

/kuv"euh neuhnt/, n.

1. an agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.

2. Law. an incidental clause in such an agreement.

3. Eccles. a solemn agreement between the members of a church to act together in harmony with the precepts of the gospel.

4. (cap.) Hist.

a. See National Covenant.

b. See Solemn League and Covenant.

5. Bible.

a. the conditional promises made to humanity by God, as revealed in Scripture.

b. the agreement between God and the ancient Israelites, in which God promised to protect them if they kept His law and were faithful to Him.

6. Law.

a. a formal agreement of legal validity, esp. one under seal.

b. an early English form of action in suits involving sealed contracts.

7. See Covenant of the League of Nations.

v.i.

8. to enter into a covenant.

v.t.

9. to promise by covenant; pledge.

10. to stipulate.

[1250-1300; ME < AF, OF, n. use of prp. of covenir < L convenire to come together, agree; see -ANT]

Syn. 1. treaty, pact, convention.

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I

In the Hebrew scriptures, an agreement or treaty among peoples or nations, but most memorably the promises that God extended to humankind (e.g., the promise to Noah never again to destroy the earth by flood or the promise to Abraham that his descendants would multiply and inherit the land of Israel).

God's revelation of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai created a pact between God and Israel known as the Sinai covenant. In Christianity, Jesus' death established a new covenant between God and humanity. Islam holds that the Last Covenant was between God and the Prophet Muhammad.

II

(as used in expressions)

Ark of the Covenant

restrictive covenant

Solemn League and Covenant

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▪ religion

Introduction

 a binding promise of far-reaching importance in the relations between individuals, groups, and nations. It has social, legal, religious, and other aspects. This discussion is concerned primarily with the term in its special religious sense and especially with its role in Judaism and Christianity.

Nature and significance

      Covenants in the ancient world were solemn agreements by which societies attempted to regularize the behaviour of both individuals and social organizations, particularly in those contexts in which social control was either inadequate or nonexistent. Though ancient pre-Greek civilizations apparently never developed a descriptive theory of covenants, analysis of covenant forms and the ancient use of language yields a definition that essentially is the same as that found in modern law. It is a promise or agreement under consideration, usually under seal or guarantee between two parties, and the seal or symbol of guarantee is that which distinguishes covenant from modern contract.

      The concept of covenant has been of enormous importance in the biblical tradition; from it there is derived the long traditional division of the Bible into the Old (Old Testament) and New Testaments (New Testament) (Covenants). In postbiblical Judaism (Torah) and sporadically in Christianity, the concept of covenant has been a major source and foundation of religious thought and especially of the concept of the religious community, but the nature and content of covenant ideas have undergone an extremely complex history of change, adaptation, and elaboration.

      Though both covenant and law in the ancient world were means by which obligation was both established and sanctioned, and are often virtually identified with each other in modern scholarly literature, there are, nevertheless, very important contrasts between the two that should not be obscured. A covenant is a promise that is sanctioned by an oath. This promise in turn was accompanied by an appeal to a deity or deities to “see” or “watch over” the behaviour of the one who has sworn, and to punish (punishment) any violation of the covenant by bringing into action the curses stipulated or implied in the swearing of the oath. Legal procedure, on the other hand, may be entirely secular, for law characteristically does not require that each member of the legal community voluntarily swear an oath to obey the law. Further, in ordinary legal procedure the sanctions of the law are carried out by appropriate agencies of the society itself, not by transcendent powers beyond the control of man and society.

      Because a person can bind only himself by an oath, covenants in the ancient world were usually unilateral. In circumstances in which it was desirable to establish a parity (equivalence) treaty, such as in rare cases in political life, the parity was obtained by the simple device of what might be termed a double covenant, in which both parties would bind themselves to identical obligations, and neither was therefore subjected to the other.

      The oath was usually accompanied by a ritual or symbolic act that might take any of an enormous range of forms. One of the most frequent of these was the ritual identification of the promisor with a sacrificial (sacrifice) animal, so that the slaughter and perhaps dismemberment of the animal dramatized the fate of the promisor if he were to violate the covenant.

Origin and function of covenants

Origins

      That covenants most probably originated in remote prehistoric times is indicated by the fact that they were already well-developed political instruments by the 3rd millennium BCE. To judge from later parallels and from the modern observations of anthropologists, covenants may very well have developed at least in part out of marriage contracts between exogamous tribes or bands; i.e., those groups that stayed within the required patterns of intermarriage. Whether or not this was the case, the most important functions of covenants for 1,000 years before the 13th-century BCE Sinai covenant had to do with the creation of new relationships, both familial and political. Though the old theory of “social contract”—i.e., the basic agreement about the social (social contract) and political order—as the basis of large social organizations has not for some time been much in favour among social scientists, very early historical evidence seems increasingly to suggest that covenants may have been much more instrumental in society than has been realized.

      Typically, so far as existing sources now reveal, a covenant between social groups regularized in advance the relationships between two societies after one had been subjugated by a superior coercive force, usually by military action or the threat thereof. In the Mari documents (18th-century-BCE archives from the palace at Mari in Syria), such a covenant was called a salimum, a “peace,” probably because the promises made by the vanquished brought to an end the necessity of military operations against the vassal ruler or state. As is the case throughout so much of human history, ancient states characteristically seem to have regarded their neighbours as either enemies or vassals. Thus it is not surprising that covenants made under duress had little vitality, particularly when the terms of the covenant called for a considerable annual tribute to the overlord state.

Late Bronze Age developments

      About the beginning of the late Bronze Age (c. 1500 BCE), there occurred a major step forward in both the form and the concept of political covenants as is attested by treaties (treaty) of the Hittite Empire of Asia Minor. Though the realities of political life were probably little changed, since the foreign policy (international agreement) of the Hittite Empire was primarily military, the structure of suzerainty treaties from this time on included rather strenuous efforts to demonstrate that the vassal's obligations to the Hittite overlord were really founded upon the former's self-interest, not merely upon the brute military force of the latter.

      By far the most evidence for international treaties in the ancient world comes from Hittite sources, which were contemporary with the events that preceded and led up to the formation of the ancient Israelite federation of tribes in Palestine. The treaty form in written texts was highly developed and flexible but usually exhibited the following structure: preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, provisions for deposit and public reading, witnesses, and curses and blessings formulas. (1) The preamble names the overlord who grants the treaty-covenant to the vassal. The titles and laudatory epithets of the Great King are also given. (2) The historical prologue describes the previous relationships between the two parties in some detail, usually emphasizing the benevolent acts of the Great King toward the vassal. Thus the covenant is based upon the demonstrated benefits that have already been received and therefore holds out the expectation of continuing advantage for faithful obedience to the covenant. There is an implication that obedience to obligations is based upon gratitude. (3) The stipulations, which in form are much like those of the ancient Mesopotamian (Mesopotamia, history of) law codes (case law), define in advance the obligation of the vassal in certain circumstances. In addition, there are also generalized statements of obligation of a type that has been called “apodictic law” (regulations in the form of a command). The obligations deal particularly with military assistance, the treatment of fugitives, and foreign policy. Treaty relationships with other independent states are a violation of covenant. (4) Provision is made for deposit of the treaty in the temple and for periodic public reading. Because the temple is the “house of the god,” the written document was placed there for the watchful attention of the deity. The treaty obligations, however, were also binding upon the vassal's citizenry, and so at stipulated intervals the text was read to the assembly, both as a reminder and a warning. (5) The list of witnesses included, in addition to the major deities of both states, deified elements of the natural world, such as mountains, rivers, heaven and earth, winds, and clouds. The witnesses were those powers that were believed to be beyond human control and upon which man and society were regarded as completely dependent. They were invoked to apply the appropriate sanctions of the covenant. (6) The curses and blessings formulas are the sanctions that furnish not only negative but also positive motivations for obedience. They include the natural and historical calamities beyond human control, such as disease, famine, death without posterity, and destruction of the society itself. The blessings are of course the opposite: prosperity, peace, long life, continuity of kingship and society.

      In view of the obsession with rituals that characterized Hittite culture, some elaborate ceremony probably accompanied the ratification of covenant, such as the account of one preserved in the document known as “The Soldiers' Oath,” but it is not described in existing covenant texts.

      Scholars in Europe and America in the 20th century have seen an astounding similarity between this treaty structure and the biblical traditions of the Sinai covenant. Publication of texts in the mid-1950s was followed by an enormous amount of scholarly discussion, but as yet no conclusions can be said to represent a scholarly consensus. The formal similarity to biblical traditions cannot be denied, but the problem of what historical conclusions can be drawn from the formal similarities is highly sensitive and controversial. While the following synthesis is a probable, and historically plausible, interpretation, it must be admitted that other possibilities can by no means be excluded.

The origin and development of biblical covenants: Judaism

The Sinai covenant

Historical background

 The 100 years between 1250 and 1150 BCE saw the complete destruction, or reduction to virtual impotence, of every major political state in the eastern Mediterranean region and the beginning of a “dark age” that has yielded very few written materials from which historical conclusions can be drawn. The reasons for the universal catastrophe are far from clear, but the reversion of society to communities of peasants and shepherds with a subsistence level economy can be well illustrated archaeologically. The earliest biblical traditions illustrate the conditions in Palestine at this time, though it is a difficult task to distinguish genuine ancient traditions from the use of the past by biblical writers to give religious validity to social realities or institutions of much later date.

      In view of the highly elaborate social structure of the old Bronze Age states—with its apex in the military aristocracy, a highly complex priesthood, and ritual—and the equally complex social structure of the many local enclaves and tribes—each with its particular god—the monotheistic (monotheism) and ethically centred religious ideology of early Israel has been regarded for millennia as a miracle of “ revelation,” which cannot be explained on the basis of usual historical principles and concepts. Yet, ancient Israel was an historically existent community created, and precariously maintained, by a unity of which the religious ideology was the foundation for two centuries, until military considerations resulted in the formation of a political centralization of power about 1000 BCE. The covenant tradition is the only instrument by which the effective functioning of that unity can be understood, and its importance is underlined by the biblical traditions themselves. The structure of the Hittite treaties now makes available an historical precedent that enables scholars to understand the structure of early Israelite thought and consequently its functional operation in history.

The covenant at Sinai

      The Decalogue (The Ten Commandments) given by Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, at Sinai, plus the various traditions associated with earliest Israel yield all of the important elements of the Hittite treaty form but in an extremely succinct and simple form. Yahweh is identified as the covenant giver, and the historical prologue is the only possible one according to the ancient traditions: the announcement that it is this God who delivered the assembled group from bondage in Egypt (in the 13th century BCE). This delivery (Exodus) is a free, voluntary act of the deity that forms the basis of the obligations that the community can either accept together with a lasting relationship to that God or reject, thus entailing a permanent hostility (hatred) between the God and human beings. It is the common relationship to a single sovereign God that furnished the basis for a radically new kind of community, which grew with rapidity first in Transjordan, then in Palestine proper, until it included virtually all the nonurban population of the region.

      The new community was the answer, temporarily at least, to the old dilemma of civilization: how to maintain peace among a large and diverse population, perform the necessary social functions of cooperation and protection, and control individual attacks upon the security and property of others without the enormous and expensive paraphernalia of political bureaucracy, military machine, and the ruinous tax collector. It was, for all functional purposes, the Kingdom (or Rule) of Yahweh (God, Kingdom of), which excluded the deification of any other factor in human history or nature that was of importance to human life and well-being. The Sinai covenant marked the beginnings of nearly all the various theological themes that were to be so greatly elaborated upon in the following millennia: the Providence, or Grace, of God; the Kingdom of God; the sin of man and the wrath of God; the Holy People as the community of God; the rewards and punishments of the obedient and the disobedient respectively; and above all, the ethical norms as the essence of divine command over against the universal pagan obsession with proper ritual as the normative expression of man's subjection to the divine will.

      The Sinaitic covenant stipulations may be expressed in modern functional terms in the following manner: (1) The commandment to have no other gods involves the obligation to refuse subjection to all other social and human concerns and their symbolization in art forms so as to give them a position of parity or superiority to Yahweh and his commands. (2) The commandment not to take the name of God in vain emphasizes the unconditional sanctity of oaths that Yahweh was called upon to guarantee and enforce. (3) The commandment to observe the Sabbath, the seventh day, the original social function of which is still unknown, could very well have grown out of a common village custom, for even in Rome in the 1st century BCE, good farming practice permitted work animals and slaves to rest every eighth day—and this is precisely the interpretation given in Deut. 5:14. (4) The commandment to honour father and mother emphasizes the treatment of parents with respect and deference, which must have been of particular importance in a time of social upheaval and polarization. (5) The commandment not to kill meant that killing of persons by persons, even by accident if it involved negligence, was a usurpation of the divine sovereignty over persons. Contrary to modern reinterpretations, among opponents of capital punishment and pacifists, this could not include execution of persons for crime or killing of the enemy in warfare (war), for in both cases human beings were acting as the agents of Yahweh under divine command, just as the various officials of states have long carried out similar functions without incurring personal guilt for their acts. (6) Other commandments against theft, adultery, and false witness categorically prohibit acts that call into question the security of property, of family relationships and true lineal succession, and the integrity and therefore the justice of juridical procedures in society. (7) Finally, the prohibition of coveting what one's neighbour has excludes an enormous range of social attitudes and motivations that modern man now takes for granted as normal, if not essential.

      Most, if not all, of the Ten Commandments are ethical obligations of which violations are very difficult if not impossible for society to detect, much less to enforce or punish. The Sinai covenant, therefore, marked the beginnings of a systematic recognition that the well-being of a community cannot be based merely upon socially organized force, nor can the political power structure be regarded, as in ancient pagan states, as the manifestation of the divine, transcendent order of the universe.

Post-Sinai covenants

      Traces remain in the biblical traditions to indicate that the new community formed from a “rabble” at Sinai was in very short time joined by a considerable part of the population of Transjordan and Palestine proper. After the destruction (in the late 13th century) of the military chiefdoms ruled by Sihon and Og in the area east of the Jordan River, the Hebrews held a covenant ceremony at Shittim (northeast of the Dead Sea), which has been greatly elaborated upon in tradition as the “second giving of the Law,” Deuteronomy. Though it is true that the Book of Deuteronomy from the 7th century BCE exhibits the same basic structure as that of the old covenant form, it is at present impossible to reconstruct the original form or content of the Shittim covenant. It may be presumed that entry into the community by covenant was followed by the allotment of land as tenured fiefs from Yahweh and the organization of the population into “tribes.” This organization probably was the last event of the Hebrew leader Moses' (Moses) life, and the sequel in the more important covenant at Shechem (Nāblus) (northwest of the Dead Sea) took place under the leadership of Joshua, the successor of Moses.

      Shechem evidently had had an important covenant tradition long before Israel existed. The name of its god, Baal Berit (“Lord of the Covenant”), presupposes some kind of covenant basis for the local social structure, just as a considerable segment of the population can be shown to have originated from Anatolia.

      The Shechem covenant narrative has been preserved at least in part in Joshua (Joshua, Book of), in which Joshua appeals to the family and clan heads to choose between the new dominion of Yahweh and the continuation of the old ancestral cults of the Amorite tradition “beyond the River.” As in the case of the Transjordan covenant at Shittim, this covenant followed the defeat of a coalition of petty kings and evidently the removal of many others according to the list of Joshua. Again, there ensued an allotment of fields and an organization of the population into administrative units called “tribes,” each under a nasi (literally, “one lifted up”).

      The entire process from the covenant at Sinai to the unification of perhaps a quarter of a million people by a covenant involving a religious loyalty to a single deity took only a little over one generation. It began with a group of probably considerably less than 1,000 people who left Egypt with Moses.

      The subsequent history of the Sinai covenant tradition is very complex. The Book of Deuteronomy preserves slight traces of a covenant-renewal ceremony held every seven years, which is inherently plausible and which would function as a means for obtaining the oath-bound loyalty to Yahweh and his dominion of those who had come into the community from the outside or who had come of age in the intervening period.

The covenants of the Israelite (Israel) monarchy (1020–587/586 BCE)

      Since early Israel was a religious confederacy of tribes that bitterly rejected the old military chiefdoms and their religious ideology, which elevated a Baal, or local agricultural deity—the god with the club as a symbol of the supernatural power undergirding the king—to a position of preeminence in the pantheon, it follows that the authentic Yahwist traditions stemming from Moses could not furnish a religious ideology to legitimize the monarchy when it was finally established first under Saul (reigned c. 1020–1000 BCE) and then successfully under David (reigned c. 1000–962). Furthermore, early in David's reign, he had incorporated by military force most of the existing city-states of Palestine and Transjordan into his empire, and that population had never given up the old Bronze Age cults.

      It is not surprising, therefore, that this double dilemma of the new political structure should have driven the royal bureaucracy to pre-Mosaic sources as a solution to the problem. One result was the reintroduction of the age-old pagan concept of the king (sacred kingship) as the “chosen” one of the gods and a radically different—and opposite—concept of covenant, in which it was now Yahweh, not the king or the people, who bound himself by oath. Possibly modelled after old royal covenants by which ancient pagan kings made a grant to their faithful retainers, the Davidic covenant introduced a radically different (and thoroughly pagan) element into the Mosaic tradition, and the two traditions contended with one another for the next 1,000 years.

      Since the old Israel-Jacob (pre-Mosaic) traditions also could not furnish an ideological base for unifying the old Israelite and non-Israelite populations under the monarchy, pre-Mosaic epic traditions of Abraham (perhaps 19th–18th centuries BCE) were appealed to to furnish the “common ancestor” symbol of unity, and the covenant tradition—no doubt, already a part of that epic—was readapted to bring it up to date. The deity (now identified with Yahweh) bound himself by oath to fulfill certain promises to Abraham, though the content of the promise, in the form now received, was by and large a description of the historical situation of the Davidic empire. Though it is difficult to see what the social or ideological function may have been, the covenant with Noah (the hero of the Flood) in Genesis exhibits the same structure. The result of all these radical changes in a very short time was a complete confusing of the religious tradition and structure and a permanent deposit of the pre-Mosaic pagan religious ideology into the biblical tradition. It seems virtually certain that the Sinai tradition was itself systematically reinterpreted in the so-called ritual decalogue of Exodus in which it is dogmatically stated that the Sinai obligations were entirely ritual in nature, rather than ethical-functional. The first tables of stone of the Ten Commandments, after all, had been “broken,” which in the ancient world was a customary phrase used to indicate the invalidation of binding legal documents.

      The next several centuries illustrate the constant battle between the Mosaic (Judaism) and the reintroduced pagan elements. The prophets proclaimed and supported the disintegration (c. 922 BCE) of the Solomonic empire into a northern (Israel) and a southern (Judah) kingdom as the divine chastisement of Yahweh for gross disobedience. Particularly in the north, which did not retain the Davidic dynasty, the prophets periodically proclaimed the necessity and inevitability of wiping out one royal dynasty after another. Elijah, a 9th-century BCE rustic prophet, ridiculed the idea that the Israelites could limp along on both legs—i.e., observe loyalty to both the Yahwistic and the Baal cults. Reforms were carried out occasionally, but not until the time of Josiah, the young king of Judah (late 7th century BCE), and the discovery of an old copy of the Mosaic legal-ethical tradition (the Deuteronomic code) in c. 621 was serious reform undertaken—and there with little permanent success. The preservation of the Mosaic tradition was a function of the destruction of the monarchical state and its religious symbol, the temple, which nearly all the pre-exilic (before 587/586 BCE) prophets had predicted.

The post-Exilic covenant tradition

      Though the prophet Jeremiah (late 7th century BCE) had predicted a “new covenant” written upon the heart (Jeremiah), not until the time of the prophets Ezra (Ezra and Nehemiah, books of) and Nehemiah in the 5th century is there another biblical narrative of covenant making, this time one of incalculable importance for the future of both postbiblical Judaism and Christianity and perhaps even for certain aspects of political theory or practice in the West (e.g., “Covenant” of the United Nations, Mayflower Compact, and constitutions).

      The account in Nehemiah is not so much that of a covenant as it is of a constitutional convention, the purpose of which was to establish as binding law the complex of traditions that had been preserved and recorded as the “law of God which was given by Moses, the servant of God” (Nehemiah). It is a one-party enactment by the authorities and representatives of the community, in which Yahweh appears only as the deity addressed in the long historical prologue in the form of a prayer. The content is a recapitulation of the Deuteronomic history (interpretations of the 7th-century BCE document), narrating the benevolent acts of Yahweh and the sin and punishment of the people. In order to avoid the curses, and obtain the blessings, the community resolved henceforth to observe the “law of God.” From this time on, the dominant concept of covenant in Judaism identifies it with circumcision, the ritual by which on the eighth day of his life, the male Jew becomes obligated to obey the law of Moses, the berit (covenant). The Sinai covenant had become permanently identified with the accumulation of legal-ritual tradition, and the community was identified not as the complex variety of all those who wished and accepted the rule of God but as the ethnic group of those who were heirs of the promise to Abraham (Old Testament) in direct lineal (and fictitious) descent.

The origin and development of the covenant in Christianity

The New Testament tradition of the covenant

      The cup of wine (Eucharist) at the Last Supper of Jesus (Jesus Christ) and his disciples before Jesus' crucifixion is identified in all New Testament sources as the (new) covenant by Jesus himself, but in spite of millennia-long controversy, theological elaboration, and discussion, the nature and meaning of the covenant has never been adequately understood historically, and the variety of interpretations regarding covenant in the New Testament itself indicates that very early in the tradition it had become a problem. Here it is possible only to indicate some significant associations that might explain why it was called a “covenant” and how the ancient Sinaitic tradition was radically renewed but the basic structure retained.

      First, it has been noted that a most important aspect of covenant traditions common to most ancient cultures was the ritual identification of the oath taker with the sacrificial (sacrifice) victim. The identification of the bread and the wine with the body and blood of Christ at the Last Supper apparently was interpreted in this sense, so that the subsequent death of the victim entails the symbolic death—the ultimate curse for breach of covenant—of all those who were thus identified with the victim. Consequently, the curses of the law were nullified. The death of Jesus thus becomes in the Christian proclamation the centre of the historical narrative—the historical prologue of the covenant—leading up to the covenant enactment, or the sacramentum, to use the Latin term of the early church, which in secular use at that time meant primarily the soldier's oath of loyalty to the emperor (see above Late Bronze Age developments (covenant)). The Christian covenant was thus a highly complex historical act that brought about a relationship of the believer to Christ whose (normally) unseen Glory was identified with that of God (God, Kingdom of) himself, whose Lordship was viewed as operational in history, and whose community (of believers) was identified with the Kingdom (Dominion or Rule) of God. If God in the Old Testament could rule without kings, God could, for the New Testament writers, rule without the elaborate structure of the accumulated legal traditions. They were regarded as valuable for edification and for warning but no longer as having binding validity. The anathema, or curse, was no longer tied to the definitions of legal violation but rather to rejection of God's rule in Christ. The community in turn was no longer the lineal descent group with a parochial ritual tradition but the assembly (ekklēsia) of those who had through the covenant accepted a relationship to the dominion of Christ.

      The obligations could not, in the New Testament viewpoint, be again defined in legal terms, nor could they be enforced by social power structures, which could deal only with external formal acts, not with the basic springs of behaviour, such as love or hate. The content of obligation was thus not defined; instead, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) and other New Testament literature, it is the criteria (motivations, ethical norms, personality traits) by which the rule of God is recognized upon which the emphasis falls. The presumption is that anyone who is capable of recognizing the rule of God in his experience in society will also be capable of understanding what the nature of his obligation will be in specific circumstances. The curses and blessings alike are then postponed until the final judgment. The motivations of fear of punishment and hope of reward are irrelevant to the daily routine of ethical choice, which is thus not only possible (i.e., not prescribed in advance by legal definition) but unavoidable and also necessary to make responsible ethical decisions in a world that is characterized by cultural diversity and change.

The post-apostolic church

      Covenant concepts in early Christian theology apparently centred on the transferrence of the Davidic covenant to the Messianic figure—i.e., Christ. The fundamental theological problem of the early church was to validate the authority of Christ against both paganism and Judaism and to maintain the authority of the new religious community. After the great theologian Augustine (354–430), little attention was given to covenants (covenant theology) until the Reformation in the 16th century. Though Luther (1483–1546) referred to and discussed the biblical covenants, it was never of particular importance to his theology. It is rather in Reformed (Reformed church) theology, particularly that of John Calvin (Reformed and Presbyterian churches) (1509–64) and the later Puritans (Puritanism) of the 17th century, that its further elaboration took place. One aspect of the use of covenant may be cited in the famed Mayflower Compact of November 11, 1620 (drawn up by the Pilgrims (Pilgrim Fathers), Separatists from the Church of England) by which a “civil body politic” was formed that would in turn enact laws and offices for the general good.

      The theological elaboration of covenant in Puritan and Separatist theology centred on the themes of election, grace, and Baptism. It is curiously ironic that covenant enactment, such as the Mayflower Compact, became historically operative but remained essentially secular, while the religious covenant became predominantly a theological concept associated particularly with Baptism—the ritual means by which a person became a participant in the covenant of grace. The essential elements in the biblical covenant—i.e., that of free, voluntary acceptance of ethical obligation on the basis of and as response to past experience—has virtually always given way to covenant as fixed religious dogma that legitimizes the social structure. Covenant historically has been a means by which new communities are formed, particularly in times of rapid change, social dislocation, or political breakdown. Covenants have rarely been the actual instruments by which societies actually functioned for long, but they are extremely frequent as ideological foundations for sociopolitical legitimacy.

Covenant in other religions

Islam (Islām)

      Covenants (mīthāq, ʿahd) were of great importance in the formative period of Islam (7th century CE, or 1st century AH—after the Hijrah [Hegira], Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina). More than 700 verses of the Qurʾān, the Muslim sacred scripture, have to do with various aspects of covenant relationships. As one recent Muslim writer, Sayyid Qutb, states, Islam combines both the Old and the New Testaments (covenants) and the Last Covenant, of Islam, as well. All revelation from Adam to Muhammad is regarded by Muslims as a unit, mediated through a series of prophets, or messengers, with whom God made a covenant: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Though the concept is difficult, it seems that the prophet in each case was given a revelation and a religion to which he covenanted with God to witness faithfully. This concept of a covenant of the prophets conveys the conviction of the unity of revelation as well as the unity of God in past history.

      On the second level, the Muslim community itself is often regarded as being composed of those who have accepted the covenant with God. In this connection, the grace, or providence, of God in nature or creation is of great importance. In addition to this view is the repeated emphasis upon the doctrine that God alone is man's sole benefactor, and for these reasons the response of gratitude is an important element in the structure of the covenant. It is also necessary that rewards and punishments are included. These are predominantly, as in the Christian concepts, focussed upon the hereafter, paradise, and hell, though not exclusively so. The recipients of the rewards and punishments are described as those who obey or disobey Allāh's (God's) commands, which include prayer, paying the zakāt (head tax: an obligatory charity), belief in the messengers of Allāh, fearing God alone, and refraining from theft, adultery, murder, and false witness. They are further obligated to show kindness to parents and to strive in the cause of God with their persons and property.

      On the historical and social level, it seems quite certain that the community of the formative period in Islām was based on covenant acts, in which persons or groups formally proclaimed their acceptance of Muḥammad's message and swore an oath of loyalty, accepting the obligations outlined above. References to the clasp of hands indicate that this was probably regarded as the formal act of commitment and acceptance by the community. In later Muslim theology, as in Christianity, the covenant idea seems to have been of comparatively little importance.

Other religions

      It seems that only in the religions stemming from the biblical tradition is covenant of central importance. Though gods are often invoked as guarantors of promises sworn to in Iranian and Indic (Hindu) religious traditions, the covenant with a deity or the community as a covenant-bound one apparently was of relatively little importance, or possibly the concept has not been recovered by modern scholarship. The great importance of Mithra (Mithraism) in early Iranian religion as god of the covenant and Mitrā-Varuṇa in Indic (Hindu) religion suggests that such concepts may have been more important than is now realized. Thus, modern scholarship has yet to indicate the importance of the covenant concept in Indo-Iranian and other religions.

George Emery Mendenhall

Additional Reading

W. Beyerlin, Herkunft und Geschichte der altesten Sinai traditionen (1961; Eng. trans., Origins and History of the Oldest Sinaitic Traditions, 1966); G.E. Mendenhall, “Covenant,” Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1, pp. 714–723 (1962); R.C. Darnell, Idea of Divine Covenant in the Qur'an (1970); D.J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant (1963); “Egyptian and Hittite Treaties” in J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 2nd ed., pp. 199–206 (1955); D.R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (1969); Jonathan Bishop, The Covenant (1982), a look at covenants in the Old and New Testaments and an attempt to apply the concept to today's world.

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