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COVENANT
102
To covenant in the Hebrew is `to cut'. To execute a deed or compact in the English is `to notch with teeth'. This
so far is useful in that it suggests that a custom or practice lies behind the peculiar use of the words `to cut a cutting'.
In the Hebrew, the covenant or the berith was confirmed by sacrifice and a reference to Jeremiah 34:18,19 will show
what lies behind the choice of this expression. We learn that Zedekiah the king had made a covenant with all the
people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them, but afterwards the king and the people turned and
caused the servants who had been set free to become bond slaves again (Jer. 34:8-11). To these men who had thus
violated their covenant, Jeremiah addressed these words:
`And I will give the men that have transgressed My covenant, which have not performed the words of the
covenant which they had made before Me, WHEN THEY CUT THE CALF IN TWAIN, and passed between the parts
(through the pieces) thereof' (Jer. 34:18).
By means of this strange ceremony the contracting parties seem to say:
`The Lord do so to me and more also, if I keep not my promise'.
Psalm 50:5 speaks of the saints who have made a covenant upon sacrifice, and the earliest example of this
custom is found in Genesis 15, where Abraham took the sacrificial animals, `divided them in the midst, and laid
each piece one against the other', and when the covenant was being made `a smoking furnace and a burning lamp'
passed between these pieces. The meticulous care with which Abraham `laid each piece one against the other'
closely resembles the `tally' or `the indenture', especially when we realize that the word `against', the Hebrew qara
literally means `to meet' as it is so translated in Genesis 14:17. Turning to the New Testament we find that the word
that is used to speak of the covenant made by God is the word diatheke, a word which means `to appoint' and which
contains no idea in its composition of `agreement'. Now if we are justified in building our doctrine on the
etymology of the Greek words employed, we shall have to agree with Janius and Parkhurst, that it indicates: `A
disposition, institution, appointment, and signifies neither a testament, nor a covenant, nor an agreement, but as the
word simply requires, a disposition or institution of God'. Parkhurst says that the word `dispensation' conveys the
idea of diatheke, and continues:
`I am well aware that our translators have rendered the word diatheke by covenant, and a very erroneous and
dangerous opinion has been built on the exposition, as if polluted, guilty man could covenant or contract with
God for his salvation'.
Now we are fully in sympathy with the impossibility of man being able to covenant or contract with God for his
salvation, but that must not be allowed to blind our eyes to other equally obvious features.
First, let us consider the question of etymology. There is no doubt that diatheke is composed of elements that
mean `to dispose' or `to appoint', just as there is no doubt but that the word `indenture' means `to notch with teeth'
words that can be spoken of a saw. Secondly, there is no doubt but that the word diatheke was used in the Greek of
the Greeks to refer to a `will and testament' whereby property was bequeathed, but we must remember that the
language of inspiration at the beginning was Hebrew, and that when the time came to translate the Hebrew into
Greek, the Septuagint translators had no option but to take the extant Greek words and use them for their new and
sacred purpose. So, although diatheke, when used of `a man's covenant' and `speaking after the manner of men'
retains its pagan meaning as it does when introduced by Paul into Galatians 3:15, the overwhelming evidence is that
diatheke must be looked upon as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew berith, and that we must ignore the etymology
of the word, remembering its usage. Before we allow the appeal of Parkhurst, namely, that no polluted or guilty
man can enter into a covenant with God, to sway us, we must remember that the covenants of the Old Testament are
either covenants of obligation, in which the contracting parties agree to observe certain terms, or covenants of
promise, in which no such agreement is entered.
When Israel stood before Mount Sinai, and said, `all that the LORD hath spoken we will do' (Exod. 19:8), we
read that Moses `returned the words of the people unto the LORD'. Consequent upon this agreement, the ten
commandments were given, and became the covenant which Israel miserably `broke'. This covenant, they received
at the hands of a mediator, and that mediator was Moses. Whenever man has entered into any agreement or
covenant of this character disaster has inevitably followed. When Noah and his family stepped out of the ark to
make a new world and a fresh start, the Lord made a covenant with them that ensured the recurrence of day and