God in the Old Testament repeatedly binds himself to his chosen people Israel through covenants. These covenants are iterated multiply beginning from the time of Adam and Noah, and down to the promise of a New Covenant in Jeremiah. But it is the Abrahamic Covenant which is the birth of the Nation of Israel as the chosen people of God.

Covenantal Culture in the ANE

The “Covenant” is a tradition of the Ancient Near East ,the region of the world in which Judaism first arose. William Robertson Smith in his “Lectures on the Religion of the Semites” discusses the covenantal tradition among the semitic people of the Ancient Near East. What is “covenant”? Unlike the sort of business deal that we are familiar with where goods are bartered, in a “covenant” oath, it is persons themselves that are given each other in a familial bond. The template for pronouncing the covenant is always along line such as: “I will be your husband and you will be my wife” or “father” and so on. That person then becomes part of the family. As it will be seen, this formula is  repeatedly used by God in the OT “I will be your God and you will be my people…”, a sign of his desire to forge a covenant relationship with his people.

The Biblical Covenants

If we include the first covenant made with Adam on the very day he is created “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it…”, there can be seen a total of six reiterations of God’s covenant: the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and finally the “new covenant” in Jeremiah. It is likely that Adam and Eve before the “Fall” did not kill animals at all (Gen. 1:29). But following that the covenant is always marked by the shedding of the blood of sacrifice. We do not examine all the covenants in detail, but a chart provides a useful idea of the similarity between them all

Noahic (Genesis 6:18 8:20-22  9:8-18)	An unconditional divine promise never to destroy all earthly life with some natural catastrophe; the covenant “sign” being the rainbow in the storm cloud.
Abrahamic (Genesis 12:1-3 15:13-18 17:9-11, 19  22:15-18)	An unconditional divine promise to fulfil// the grant of the land (v. 17) A conditional divine pledge to be Abraham’s God and the God of his descendants (cf. “As for me,” v. 4; “As for you,” v. 9); the condition: total consecration to the Lord as symbolized by circumcision
Mosaic (Siniaiatic) (Exodus 19:5-8 24:3-8  31:13-17)	A conditional divine pledge to be Israel’s God (as her Protector and the Guarantor of her blessed destiny); the condition: Israel’s total consecration to the Lord as his people (his kingdom) who live by his rule
Davidic (2 Samuel 7:11-16 Psalm 89:3-37)	An unconditional promise to establish and maintain the Davidic dynasty on the throne of Israel to provide her forever with an eternal king of David’s line and bring her into eternal rest (1Ki 4:2021; 5:34)
Messianic (Isa 59:20-21 Jer 31:31-34  Eze 36:24-31  37:26-38  Heb 8:8-12 10:15-18)	An unconditional divine promise to unfaithful Israel to forgive her sins and establish his relationship with her on a new basis by writing his law “on their hearts”— a covenant of pure grace

The Covenant with Abraham

Biblehub has a beautiful word study on “Chesed” here https://biblehub.com/hebrew/2617.htm, which shows how the Psalms are suffused with this word, as is much of the Old Testament. It does not just signify “love”, which as we know can be a number of things in English which can amount to no more than a non-committal emotional state. Rather here it is a specific love of “family”, the covenantal love of God by which he confers upon us the greatest honor of all- that of being called by his family Name, as it says in Ephesians 3:15 “from  for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name”.

God’s promise to Abraham, remember, is not just the one that is easily remembered that his descendants will be as “numerous as the stars” or “as the grains of sand..”, but that “I will be their God” (v.17:8). Abraham’s descendants will be the family of God.

And God confirms that his covenant will be fulfilled through Isaac, not Ishmael ““And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year”(Genesis 17:20-21).”

“This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be”(Genesis 15:4-5).”

God “Covenants” a People to Himself

Christianity is the only world religion in which God makes a “covenant” promise with His people. This is highly significant because the covenant serves the purpose of stating clearly what is to be done and for what end. Through this covenant, God’s intention is to make us family, which He repeatedly and emotively reiterates, calling himself as our “husband”, “Israel my firstborn” and most so in the book of Isaiah “as a mother comforts her baby…” and “Can a mother forget her baby…” In the NT, Jesus calls us his brothers and St Paul says we are god’s adopted children etc. God wants to make a bond with us that is not just lifelong but eternal. He wants to give us the highest dignity and honor: to be His family. “you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Eph. 2:19). In accomplishing this through “covenant”, there is an element of free will, for there is mutual consent involved and man must accept the terms of this kinship. As God has deemed it, the covenant is in blood. In the one sense it is redemption, with blood in return for the blood spilled by sin, and on the other it is a blood relationship, for we are flesh and blood. From the beginning from the creation of the first human being God is in a covenantal relationship with his people, he is developing this relationship with them, he is making promises to them to get them to promise themselves back to him. He is always faithful, but he wants us to eb faithful back, and this is how.

Pope Benedict XVI writes: “The Sabbath is a vision of freedom. On this day slave and master are equals…The Sabbath is the sign of the covenant between God and man; it sums up the inward essence of the covenant…Creation exists as the place for the covenant that God wants to make with man, The goal of Creation is the covenant, the love story of God and man, The freedom and equality of men, which the Sabbath is meant to bring about…Only when man is in covenant with God does he become free, Only then are the equality and dignity of all men made manifest…I should like to refer to the text that concludes the giving of the ceremonial law in the book of Exodus. It is constructed in close parallel to the account of Creation. Seven times it says, “Moses did as the Lord commanded him”. Words that suggest that the seven-day world on the tabernacle replicates the seven-day work of creation. The account of the construction of the tabernacle ends with a kind of vision of the Sabbath: “So Moses finished the word. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Ex40:33f.)” The completion of the tent anticipates the completion of creation…the covenant completes creation.” (SotL p25-7)

(Note on “Sabbath”:- it is first met with in connection with the fall of the manna (Exodus 16:22), but it there appears as an institution already known to the Israelites. The Sinaitic legislation therefore only gave the force of law to an existing custom. (one supposes it was adopted to reflect the seven-day Creation in Genesis. There si some possible evidence that the word is of Babylonian origin (shabattu/ shapattu relating to a certain day of the month (15^th) or sha patti, “division” of the month). I note that in Marathi (an Indian subcontinent Sanskrit-derived language) “shappat” means oath. Shavath in Hebrew is to swear an oath, as well as “seven”, and so it is that the Sabbath comes to be the day of the promise. (In Hebrew the word for the “b” sound and the “v” sound is the same). “oath”, hence “Beersheba- Well of the Oath or well of the seven, both in the footnote in NRSV” (Gen.21:31) and Bathsheba “Daughter of the oath”.)

Covenantal Love:

The Hebrew word for “covenant” is berith. It is mentioned 285 times in the OT (Gk: diatheke, Lat: testamentum). God describes the love that is in a covenantal relationship in Isaiah 55:3 “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” The term “steadfast, sure love,” in the English translation is the single Hebrew word: hesed. hesed means love, faithfulness, loyalty, and reliability. Strong’s notes that the word is used as a general term for faithfulness also 284 times and notes that the words hesed and berith are used together in Deut 7:9 and 12 (translated “covenant loyalty”), and other verses like Micah 7:20; 1 Kings 8:23 2Chronicles 6:14; Nehemiah 1:5; Nehemiah 9:32; Daniel 9:4. The word for “love” on the other hand is “aheb” אָהַב. It is used in the same passage Deut 7:9 along with hesed to imply man loving God in return for God’s hesed berith.

David’s kingdom is established by a divine covenant (2 Sam5:3; 2 Chr.13:5, Ps. 89:3-4) “You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David: ‘I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” (Psalm 89:3,4)

The New Covenant of the Heart, Prophesied

That last of the covenantal iterations in Jeremiah 31:31-34 is different from all the rest because it is an allusion to the future: “I will write…”, “I will make…”. God asserts that the old covenant has been broken by the Israelites’ unfaithfulness. “New covenant” as a term is used once in the OT, (Jeremiah 31), and Jesus says it in only one place that is at the Last Supper meal. This is also mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews12:22-23 and in 13:20 as “eternal covenant” and the Apostle St. Paul declares himself a minister “of the new testament” (2 Cor 3:6), and calls the covenant entered into on Mount Sinai “the old testament” (2 Cor 3:14).

^“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

The sentiment is echoed in the next chapter with the use of the term “everlasting covenant”: Jeremiah 32:37-41 ^“See, I am going to gather them from all the lands to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation; I will bring them back to this place, and I will settle them in safety. They shall be my people, and I will be their God.  I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them.  I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.”

Ezekiel uses a similar image, speaking of God giving Israel a “new heart and a new Spirit” so they will be able to follow God’s law: “Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live. (Ez 37:12–14)

Finally, Ezekiel summarizes the situation of the “covenant of peace”: “My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. . . . I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an eternal covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Ez 37:24–27). We shall come to this verse again when we speak of the restoration of the Temple. Then Ezekiel adds the name “everlasting covenant” to the covenant of peace. In the Mass, the Church combines Jeremiah’s phrase “New Covenant” with Ezekiel’s phrase “everlasting covenant” and says, “the new and everlasting covenant,” or “the new and eternal covenant,” which means the same.

The New Covenant is Cut into the Heart, not Stone

The Law on Mt. Sinai was cut into tablets of stone (fn- usually done in practise by first covering the stone over with plaster). It is on Pentecost that the New Covenant receives its fulfilment for the Law is now “written on their hearts” by the descent of the Holy Spirit himself upon the believers as a fulfilment of Jeremiah 31 passage. As confirmation, following the descent of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:37 the Gospel passage says“ Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart…”, a rich image of the Law being cut into living hearts by God himself. As it says in Ezekiel 36:26 “⁶ A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Thus also at the fulfilment of the ages, God no longer speaks primarily through the written word: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” Hebrews1:1,2 God’s message is God himself, dwelling within man.

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. (Ez 36:24–27)