Patriarchal Covenant

Patriarchal Covenant, also called the Abrahamic Covenant, is the covenant God made with Abraham, the oath He swore to Isaac, and the decree He confirmed to Jacob as "an everlasting covenant" (Psalm 105:8-10). Its promises were offspring, land, and blessing for the nations (Genesis 22:17-18; 26:3-4; 28:13-14).

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The Promise to Abram

In the call of Abraham, the LORD told Abram to leave his country, kindred and father's household for "the land I will show you," promising to make him a great nation: "I will bless those who bless you," and "all the families of the earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:1-3). Abram left Haran at seventy-five and entered Canaan in 2091 BC, where the LORD promised the land to his offspring (Genesis 12:4-7).

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The Covenant Between the Pieces

Promised a son of his own as heir, not Eliezer of Damascus, and offspring like the stars, "Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:2-6). Saying, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans," God told Abram to bring a heifer, a goat and a ram, and Abram cut them in half (Genesis 15:7-10). After dark "a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves," and the LORD made a covenant with Abram, giving his descendants the land "from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates," the land of ten peoples (Genesis 15:17-21).

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The Covenant of Circumcision

When Abram was ninety-nine, God Almighty said, "Walk before Me and be blameless," renamed him Abraham, "father of many nations," and promised kings among his descendants, an everlasting covenant to be their God, and "all the land of Canaan" as an eternal possession (Genesis 17:1-8). Its sign was circumcising every male at eight days old; an uncircumcised male would be "cut off from his people" (Genesis 17:10-14). God renamed Sarai as Sarah and promised His covenant to Isaac, her son to come, while also blessing Ishmael (Genesis 17:15-21).

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The Oath and Its Renewal

Isaac was born in 2066 BC, when Abraham was a hundred, "at the very time God had promised" (Genesis 21:1-5). After the binding of Isaac, the LORD said, "By Myself I have sworn," promising descendants like the stars and the sand on the seashore because Abraham had "not withheld" his son (Genesis 22:16-18). At Sarah's death and burial at Machpelah, the field and cave became Abraham's burial ground in Canaan (Genesis 23:17-20). The LORD confirmed to Isaac the oath sworn to Abraham, promising "all these lands" and descendants like the stars "because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge" (Genesis 26:3-5). In Jacob's ladder vision He promised Jacob the land on which he lay and descendants like the dust of the earth (Genesis 28:13-15), and after renaming him Israel, a nation, kings and the land given to Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 35:10-12).

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The Covenant Remembered

God "remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" and promised to bring Israel into the land He swore to give them (Exodus 2:24; 6:4-5, 8), and in Leviticus promises to remember it (Leviticus 26:42). Joshua records that the LORD gave Israel the land and rest He had sworn to their fathers, and that not one of His good promises had failed (Joshua 21:43-45). Deuteronomy calls Israel to "circumcise your hearts" and promises that God will do so (Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6).

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How Interpreters Read It

Robert P. Gordon of Cambridge, in a 1975 article on Genesis 15, reads God's passing between the pieces as a "solemn undertaking that He will fulfil the promises made," comparing Jeremiah's calf, cut in two, whose fate covenant breakers would share (Jeremiah 34:18). Moshe Weinfeld, in his article on the biblical covenant, thinks the Bible's idiom to "cut" a covenant (karat) may derive from cutting an animal in the ceremony. Weinfeld models this promise on ancient Near Eastern royal grants, gifts for loyal service: God swears to give the land "without imposing any obligations." Gerard Van Groningen, writing on covenant in 1996, reads it otherwise, stressing "because you have obeyed me" and a covenant of "promise and law," in which faith and obedience belong together.