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A Rollercoaster To Remember
A Charting of the Covenantal Relationship Between God and Man:
From Genesis to Job

An Essay By Alex Telis

For the ancient Israelites the secular understanding of a covenant, or a legally

binding form of quid pro quo agreement, formed the basis of understanding for their

relationship with the divine, with God. The ancient Israelites of the Hebrew Bible took

very seriously the notion that their relationship with God was in the form of a covenant

with Him1. It is extremely important to understand this in order to fully understand the

ancient Israelite (and therefore the Bible’s) expectations of their God. Their God, it is

assumed, is an all powerful being; he was able to create the world ex nihilo, defeat the

Leviathan, etc. The Israelites did not necessarily believe that, in general, God was a just,

compassionate being; in fact these expectations of God all grow out the covenants made

between God and his people. The covenants that God willingly put forth and entered into

with his chosen people put both expectations upon the Lord from the Israelites in terms of

his positive (i.e. things he will do) and negative actions (i.e. things he omits from doing),

as well as real restrictions upon God’s actions, which the Israelites fully expected they

could “call” God on. It is no small matter to believe that by entering into an agreement

with an omnipotent being you, as a mortal limited human, are thereby able to limit that

beings power. Of course, it can not be forgotten that the ancient Israelites had to uphold
1And again: I know that there is now a PC/feminist movement to make Bible’s gender neutral in thier
references to God, however, in a paper that is a critique of the original text (as close as I can come to
reading it) and the original intentions of the text’s authors/editors I will refer to God as they did, as a
masculine figure.
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their side of the covenant in order to necessitate that God hold up his side, otherwise

there would not be a breach of contract if God does not uphold his promise.

The first covenant made in the Hebrew Bible is made with Noah after God

destroys the world in the Flood. This, like the covenant with King David, is an

unconditional one; the Israelites do not have to do anything, God makes a promise that he

can never go back on. He says, “’As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and

your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you… I establish

my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood,

and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth (Gen. 9:9-11).” This covenant,

though crucial to the preservation of the human race, is relatively straightforward: there is

nothing for humans to do to allow God to break his promise, and as far as we can tell, he

has not broken it yet!

The next covenant that God enters into is one of vital importance for it, in

essence, creates the people of Israel: this is the covenant with Abraham. Abraham must

promise that all members of his household (blood descendants and slaves and servants

alike) will walk in the way of the Lord and show their side of the covenant by

circumcised; as for God, he promises Abraham that his descendants, specifically by Isaac

(not by Ishmael), will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the earth.

This covenant sets up our expectations of God: if the Israelites follow God and worship

him then God will make them a people too numerous to count. God had already earned

Abraham’s faith, he was not worried about him straying, however God was not entirely

certain about the next Patriarch, Jacob. In order to make sure that Jacob will remain a
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faithful Yahwist, God looks after him while he is with Laban, and Jacob is sold. In

Genesis 35, after God changes his name from Jacob to Israel, Jacob then “set up a pillar

in the place where he had spoken” (Gen. 35:14), and this act symbolized Jacob becoming

a pure Yahwist; he will worship none but the Lord his God. This should be seen not

without a sense of irony, as the major act in the Bible is the four hundred year sojourn of

the Israelites in Egypt, during the majority of which it seemed as if God had completely

forsaken his people.

When the Israelites first enter into Egypt God is still very much looking after

Joseph and his family. Joseph becomes extremely powerful in Egypt and he and his

family are well taken care of. However, for no apparent reason, God allows his side of

the covenant to fall into jeopardy. The Israelites are enslaved, not in a land that is their

own, and when Pharaoh decrees that all male babies born to the Israelites must be killed,

it seems that it will be impossible for the descendants of Abraham to number the stars in

the sky. Just as it seems that the relationship between God and his people is lost, God

finally hears and responds to the pleas of his people and chooses Moses to go and lead his

people out of Egypt. When it seems that all is lost, God delivers, he does not go back on

his promise; it seems he is truly bound by his covenant.

In fact, after God finally saves his people and proves himself loyal once more, he

offers yet another covenant to his people. The Lord gives Moses the Ten Commandments

and a whole host of laws and practices that they must follow, and he says that if they

follow these he will be their guardian. In Exodus 23:20-33 God promises that if “you

shall worship the Lord your God” then he will “bless your bread and your water”, “send
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my terror in front of you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you

shall come”, and promises that “if you worship their [enemies’] gods, it will surely be a

snare to you”. And for a time after this covenant things go well for the people of Israel.

They survive the desert, and in the Book of Joshua we witness the might of the Lord as

he leads his people from conquest to conquest, including Jericho, and eventually are able

to rid the land of Canaan, their land of Canaan, of most of its original inhabitants.

However, as seems to be the pattern, soon after a new covenant seems to be

working out the people of Israel face another time of hardship. After Joshua we enter the

time of the Judges, during which the people are either constantly attacked because they

begin to break the covenant and the laws given to them at Sinai. After a long period

during which the people of Israel are not keeping up their side of the covenant the Lord

enters into another unconditional covenant. It seems that for one reason or another, the

Lord, despite all the wrong that his people are committing, does not wish to forsake his

people entirely. He would be legitimately within his rights to abandon them and go off to

find a new people who could worship him. But this is not his chosen path; instead he

anoints King David to the throne of Israel and promises that there shall be a Davidic king

on the throne forever (2nd Sam. 7:13-17).

God’s fourth covenant stays in effect for a long time, however it is a time riddled

with strife and it is merely a long time, not forever. During the time of the prophets the

land of Israel becomes divided into two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. They are constantly

bickering and under threat from a newly invading empire; in fact Israel is completely

decimated, never to be heard from again. The only consolation is that when the two
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nations do split the Davidic line sits on the throne of Judah, thereby saving it for at least a

little while. However, in 587 BCE, the fourth covenant is broken when Babylon marches

into Judah and destroys Jerusalem, the Temple, and exiles almost the entire population

into Babylon. The Davidic throne is cut off when Zedekiah is dethroned. The covenant

demanded nothing from the people of Israel, there was no reason that God could/can give

for breaking it. As the Bible draws to a close we are left truly worried about the state of

the Israelites relationship with God. After the horrors portrayed in the Book of

Lamentations, and the questioning of God’s justice in the Book of Job, we wonder

whether the Israelites will ever enter into a covenant with God again. It is clear that they

will not stop worshiping him, the question is whether they can really trust him to hold his

word. In classic form, as is mentioned above, God makes it seem that there is no hope for

the Jews when he does not stop six million of them from being killed during the

Holocaust. Then, when times seem as if they are at their worst, it seems as if the fourth

covenant could once again be enacted as on the first of October 1948 the State of Israel is

once again established. There is still a possibility that God will put a Davidic king on the

not-yet-established throne of Israel. But until then it is only a hope, and the covenantal

relationship with God seems to be one that should be approached with great suspicion.