The covenant between God and his chosen people is not seen as a mere agreement rather as a blood oath, meaning that if broken then the might of God will be unleashed. For simple people during this ancient period, the notion of testing God’s anger was unheard of, prompting an almost fear like loyalty to him. This supernatural loyalty can be seen in the stories of Abraham, Noah, Job, and Moses. These men did not actively seek a covenant with God, but found themselves accepting when one was presented to that fear. This fear is rightly felt as humanity witnesses God flooding, wanting human sacrifices, and tormenting a loyal follower. At a point the term covenant has a totally new meaning in the ancient texts, and it is remarkable how each person responds to God’s covenant in the same way, without question and following the covenant to the letter. The strict understanding of the word ‘covenant’ can be seen in the Genesis accounts of Abraham. Abram, Abraham’s original name, was content with his wife Sarai in Haran until God told him to drop everything and move to a foreign land. God promised Abram “a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). An average person would have been skeptical over this claim, but the superhuman devotion to covenant allowed Abram to obey God without question. Richard Bautch refers to Abraham’s covenant with God as the “covenant of divine commitment” (Bautch 43). This meanings that a covenant involving God and a human has supernatural repercussions if broken. For a time in history where ancient Gods ruled by fear, it was normal to ask much of humanity because a covenant that was divine involved a new level of commitment that was not found in agreements amongst humans. The God’s promises to Abraham are seen as irrevocable, making it more understandable why Abraham would immediately follow God. It can almost be seen as a very strict business transaction where God promises land and descendants, and in return Abraham follows God’s commands. (Bautch) Just as Abram kept his word by moving, so did God by allowing the barren Sarai to bare a son. God, being loving and honoring his covenant, allowed Sarai to give birth to Isaac. Isaac’s birth gave Abraham great joy, until God instructed him to “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac … and offer him there [land of Moriah] for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:2). For Abraham, this was the ultimate test. Though it not in the Bible, one can assume there was some inner conflict within Abraham to either disobey God hence breaking his covenant or kill his own son in the name of God. This is further explored in religious hymns. That following morning, Abraham and Isaac got ready for the sacrifice. Right before Abraham almost killed his son, an Angel appeared telling Abraham not to kill Isaac. Instead Abraham found a ram and used it as a burnt offering. When examining the level of loyalty a covenant calls for, readers must avoid value-judgements that take the story out of its historical context. The covenant between God and Abraham is meant to demonstrate the high standards God has for his chosen people, and the level of devotion needed to uphold a covenant. This devotion might seem one sided, but God also upholds his end of the covenant by giving Abraham countless descendants, “And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 26:4). God provided these many gifts because Abraham kept his covenant with God, despite the many hardships and tests that Abraham received. Noah is chosen by God due to his perfection, thus making him an ideal candidate for a creation of a covenant God. Due to the corruption of humankind, God decides to wipe out the world’s population in order to recreate a more morally pure people. In God’s covenant with Noah, God gives direct measurements for the creation of the ark, who to allow on board, and why he is destroying the planet. Similar to Abraham, Noah accepts without question, probably because if he denies the covenant then Noah and his family will drown in the flood. This covenant chooses to use a unique understanding of the devotion of covenant by using the verb “to ‘swear’ with the phrase ‘to cut a covenant.’” These are placed together to show the binding contract the covenant entails. (The covenant with Noah) Despite God holding most of the power in the covenant agreement, God is kind to Noah and allows him to take “thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee” (Genesis 6:18). Interestingly God outlines his entire plan to Noah in the beginning instead of revealing pieces as time continues, as God does with Abraham. The flooding of the Earth lasted one hundred and fifty days, and at the “six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth” (Genesis 8:13). When the ark found land, God gave the command to procreate. The last covenant God gives is to Noah, saying “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake … neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done” (Genesis 8:21). The meaning of covenant has changed its meaning over the generations, but in its truest sense it calls for devotion attributes such as faith and loyalty. Each of the biblical stories involving God’s covenant begin and end with a superhuman loyalty and faith that is found nowhere else in society. This type of faith is only shown towards God. (Dumbrell) The inhuman devotion to God continues in the Biblical text as God tests another one of his creations, Moses in the Book of Exodus. In Exodus the people of Israel are introduced to the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. God commands Moses to recite the Ten Commandments to the Israelites. He also has to let them know that if they obey these commandments they will be his “treasured possession out of all the peoples” and “shall be for [him] a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6). After hearing this from Moses the Israelites responded, “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). After this the Mosaic covenant was official. The Israelites had given their word to obey the commandments while God agreed to make Israel a holy nation. The people of Israel decided that they wanted gods to worship, so they told Aaron to make them some and Aaron created a golden calf for them. God tells Moses what happens and when he hears of this he comes down from the mountain and burns the calf. The people are then punished with a plague for the creation of the golden calf. By creating the golden calf, the Israelites broke one of the Ten Commandments, which means they broke the covenant with God. God could have punished the people eternally for not obeying the Ten Commandments, but he decides not to. This can be because he wants Israel to be the holy nation. Also God could have kept the covenant in tact to show that even if you do mess up God will forgive you no matter what. This could be a hint to how the people were at this time. There could have been a lot of people sinning recklessly and felt like the covenant between them and God was broken forever, but this is not the case. As long as you have loyalty to God and are willing to show that you can do the right thing God will keep the covenant. The Israelites sinned and were given another chance because they had their idol but continued to show loyalty to God. In the book of Job, Job’s superhuman devotion to God is shown through his actions as he is tested by God to prove to the devil that he is loyal. According to Job 1:1, Job was “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” He was also described as having ten children and thousands of livestock and multiple servants. With this being said Job can be seen as a righteous man who had many possessions. One day Satan told God that if he took everything away from Job then Job would no longer be the righteous man that he is said to be. To prove Satan wrong God decided to test Job by taking away all of his possessions and his kids. God killed all of his livestock, inflicted him wit sores, and kills all of his children. Despite everything that God has taken from Job he continues to remain faithful and loyal to God. This shows that suffering is necessary in Christian theology as it is one way to show your loyalty to God. Job refuses to speak badly about God even while he is suffering because he did not believe it was the right thing to do. He felt that if God could bless him, God should also be able to make him suffer. Green states, “The Prologue establishes that Job's suffering is both gratuitous and deliberate” (Stretching the Covenant: Job and Judaism, 2002). As a result of the covenant between God and man, Job refused to turn his back on God no matter what he was put through. This bible passage exemplifies how man should act in covenants with God. Since God has more power than man and is our ruler it is only right that we stay loyal to him through everything we go through. If we lose faith and become disloyal to God we will be breaking the covenant. At the end of the book, Job is given more possession than he ever had before. As a result of staying devoted to God, he was rewarded for it. These rewards can also be examples of the benefits to staying loyal to God no matter what. God may have to test us from time to time to make sure that we are staying true to him. He was able to prove the devil wrong because Job was so righteous and so devoted to God and the covenant. Job’s loyalty to God allowed him to be able to endure everything that God put him through with no explanation. If Job did not have complete loyalty in God then he would have denounced God for taking everything away from him. Job could have easily broken the covenant between him in God because of everything that he had to go through. Since he was loyal to God he was able to uphold the covenant and benefit from it with all that God gave him afterwards. This biblical passage exemplifies why loyalty to God is so important in covenants. Though some hardships may occur in life it is our duty to stay loyal in order to keep our covenant between God. Without loyalty to God there can be no covenant between God and Man. Man has shown completely loyalty to God in order to uphold their covenants. By putting up with everything that God put them through and not straying away from God their loyalty was shown. By staying loyal to God the people did exactly as God said in almost every instance.
